I'm back!!!!!!!!

drbassman · July 11, 2008, 08:32:24 AM

I never thought I could leave home for 13 days on vacation, but we did it and had a great time out west. Wireless internet sucks in most motels, no matter what they advertise. I only had like 4 days of service during the entire trip and that was at my daughter's and brother-in-law's houses!

I'm back and looking forward to getting back in the shop!

Barklessdog · July 11, 2008, 09:26:28 AM

Here I thought you shut down the computer and was furiously finishing project basses!

Now that would be a cool vacation.

drbassman · July 11, 2008, 09:32:14 AM

Yellowstone is unreal, what a beautiful place and the western states are so diverse. We loved it! We'll go again for sure!

Barklessdog · July 11, 2008, 10:30:46 AM

The guy I worked with went there last year and he said huge expanses of trees are dead due to some bug infestation?

sniper · July 11, 2008, 11:00:16 AM

welcome back

drbassman · July 11, 2008, 03:34:02 PM

Quote from: Barklessdog on July 11, 2008, 10:30:46 AM
The guy I worked with went there last year and he said huge expanses of trees are dead due to some bug infestation?

Well, there is a lot of lumber laying on the ground, but there's 5 times as much standing tall and there are evergreens covering most of the 2.2 millions acres of the park. Most of it, I thought, was due to previous forest fires. Didn't hear anything about bugs or vermin doing it. Nature seems to be handling it as far as I could see. A beautiful place nonetheless.

And it's good to be back!

Dave W · July 11, 2008, 05:30:12 PM

There are huge expanses of pines killed by a bark beetle infestation in Colorado and it's spreading gradually into southern Wyoming. But the dead trees in Yellowstone are from old fires or old infestations.

And welcome back, Bill.

godofthunder · July 12, 2008, 03:39:21 PM

Welcome back Bill, we missed ya !

drbassman · July 13, 2008, 05:28:54 PM

Quote from: godofthunder on July 12, 2008, 03:39:21 PM
Welcome back Bill, we missed ya !

Thanks Scott! The only things I missed was you guys and my workshop! Otherwise, 2 weeks away from work was glorious!!!!

shadowcastaz · July 18, 2008, 08:29:14 PM

Nice!! I just got back from wellfleet,cape cod myself.. It did not suk! Nice to have u back

drbassman · July 19, 2008, 05:55:48 AM

Cap Cod sounds nice too! We love going to Maine in the summer, great part of the country!

SKATE RAT · July 19, 2008, 07:13:47 AM

cape cod is great.plus they have one of the last drive-in movie theaters

shadowcastaz · July 19, 2008, 03:42:41 PM

We have one in Fairlee Vermont,Drive in that is .

drbassman · July 19, 2008, 04:07:57 PM

We've got one left about 20 miles from here. Does a good business too!

Pilgrim · July 25, 2008, 08:48:17 AM

We have a two-screen drive-in here in Fort Collins (northern Colorado, about 40 miles south of Cheyenne, WYO). The cool thing about it is that although they still have the old speakers-on-a-post, they broadcast the sound track for each screen on a low power FM frequency so that you can listen with your car stereo. In my case, I've backed a pickup into the parking spot, put a pair of 2x12's across the bed by the cab to form a seat and put camp chairs in the end of the bed toward the tailgate. It makes 2-tiered seating. The kids can fort up against the cab on the 2x12 platform with blankies and pillows, and the grownups can sit in comfort in the camp chairs. We bring a boom box with fresh batteries, sit it on the cab and tune it to the FM frequency. My daughters went to The Dark Knight and another movie two nights ago...they're big enough to drive themselves now, so the 2x12's have been retired (note: if you do this, put a cleat under each end of the 2x12 so they can't slide off the sides of the pickup bed...)

About Yellowstone - you may recall they had huge forest fires in that region in 1988; those fires burned about one-third of the region that year. We only live a day's drive from there, and we have visited a couple of times since the fires. A lot of the dead and downed trees near the road are due to the fire. However, since then, the pine bark beetles have become a problem throughout the entire west. I don't doubt that many of the old trees have been killed by them. My view is that the pine bark beetle is part of a cyclic phenomenon and we'll eventually realize that we need to ride it out and let nature restore the forests over (a lot of) time.