Author: Steve

  The kids are expecting us in Phoenix in time for the new baby arriving in December.  We decided to leave early and get there for the baby shower today and surprise them, so we made this entire trip in stealth mode, talking in our nightly trip reports and phone calls about anything except being on the road, until after the big surprise moment.   Finally, after a thousand miles and a week on the road, we showed up for the shower…. But the only ones surprised were us.  We had the time wrong.  We arrived at two and the shower was at eleven.  They’d all just left!   Darn.  That was a bit of a letdown.  We had to call and find out where they were going to be next.  We all met up at their house and had a nice afternoon together with them and the kids.   Then Alex babysat while the four of us went out for dinner.  It would have been nice to surprise Matt and Lindsay at the shower, but we’d have spent the next two hours in a large group, not being able to hear each other in a noisy restaurant.  This way we got a nice long quiet dinner on an outside patio, at a restaurant where we could all hear the conversation.   A very nice end to the day of course.  

  Well, maybe tomorrow we’ll eat light and exercise a lot.   The migrants we get here are mostly easterners.  There are western migrants too, but in the Valley, we primarily get the eastern ones.  Here is a blue-headed vireo          

  A quiet day here.  We slept in, had morning coffee, then some of us went back to sleep until noon!  A lazy day eating, sleeping, reading, football, and the group potluck Thanksgiving Dinner.  Tomorrow we’ll try to eat light and exercise enough to make up for today.   Happy Thanksgiving all!    

  Can you find the wild turkey in this photo?    

  In the NFL, after a touchdown, there are options:  If you try for an extra point, the ball is spotted at the fifteen and you try to kick it through the uprights for one point.  If you decide to try for a two point conversion, the ball is spotted at the two and you try to run or pass it into the end zone for two points.   So here is my question.  If you decide to go for the extra point, snap it from the fifteen, mishandle the ball, which destroys the timing of the kick, but the holder, still in possession of the ball, turns and runs the ball into the end zone, how many points do you get?   One, because even though you didn’t kick it through the uprights, you got it into the end zone?   Two, because even though you set up for an extra point, you put the ball in the end zone like you would have if you had successfully gone for the two point conversion?   Or zero, because you didn’t do what you said you were going to do?