Listening to the various commentators makes me want to scream in agony. It is hard enough to determine who might be winning the competition, especially if there is no American involved, but every effort is described in terms that make you wince. Every athlete is inspirational, has battled adversity, has overcome challenges, has achieved (or not) their dream… ad nauseum! I can’t take it. Thank heavens for the online coverage, where the live broadcasts have NO narrative! The peace is wonderful. Unfortunately, the typed narrative is usually far behind the action, so determining leaders is problematic. I also have the Dish Networks channels that provide the full telecasts of all basketball and soccer matches, without commercial interruption. But I still have to put up with the sappy narrative.

So, as a public service, I am including the Slate Magazine Sap-O-Meter! This widget displays in real time the latest sap measurments from NBC telecasts.

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Every year I live in the desert, we have some new plague, or unusual happening. These little critters started showing up last week. At first, we saw one or 2 while we out walking. Then they started appearing in greater numbers. Now, I am over-run with them. We had friends over for dinner Wednesday evening. I envisioned a pleasant evening sitting on our patio, enjoying the balmy weather and the views. Unfortunately, the big number of these caterpillars made sitting outside unpleasant. Stepping on them left a disgusting green mess, and there were so many, that it was hard not to step on them. If they are touched, or you try to move them, they vomit a large amount of greenish fluid from their mouths.

Well, the county Extension Agent assured us they are harmless. They are the larvae of the White-Lined Sphinx moth. The sphinx moth is the largest moth found in the desert here. They are a beneficial insect, they are nectar eaters so they pollinate plants. I did notice there were more of these guys than usual this year. Well, it turns out they were having sex and reproducing!! This is the result of their trysts. It turns out that weather conditions were perfect for these guys this year. We had a drier than normal winter, so the wasp population was down. Wasps, are natural predators for the Sphinx Moth. Therefore the moth population was up this year. Then, after the moths mated an laid their eggs, we had a very wet July. The rain caused the plants that these guys eat to sprout in abundance. So, lots of eggs, lots of food equals lots of larvae. And, apparently these guys taste bad, so none of the birds or rodents will eat them.

We have been advised that the best course of action is to just wait them out. Supposedly they will start to burrow into the ground in a week or so and build their cocoon. Out of which will come a sphinx moth! I don’t see a happy conclusion to this process. Until then,, they are decorating the side of my house. Here are some near the top of the house, with a dis-interested Gambels Quail watching.

Did I tell you about the diamondback I found under the woodpile? I’ll save that for another time.

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For both destinations, I used Tripadvisor.com to look for a moderately priced hotel. In Vegas, I wanted something off the strip, and not to far off the highway 95. In Phoenix, I wanted something close to I-10, and would be out of rush-hour traffic in the AM. I looked for hotels using Tripadvisor. They have a neat feature that uses Google Maps to locate hotels, and then links them to their reviews. Using that I could see exactly where the hotel was located, and then could read customer reviews of the hotel.

In Las Vegas I chose the Suncoast Hotel. The Suncoast is part of the Sams Town group (Coast Casinos) and is located on the North (and west) side of town, actually in Summerlin. It was only a couple of minutes off of 95, and when we left in the morning, we would be heading the opposite direction of traffic. It was an excellent choice for us, and for anyone just traveling through, and who wants to avoid the congestion and activity of the strip. But, if you are going to Vegas for the shows and nightlife, stay on the strip. One of the other features about Tripadvisor that I like is that you can leave a review also. To read my review of the Suncoast, click here.

In Phoenix, I chose a Best Western Tempe by the Mall, in Tempe. It was only one block from I-10, and on the South side of downtown, so I could avoid traffic when we left in the morning. To read my review of this hotel, click here.

I will include a link to Tripadvisor.com in my links box on the left, and on my links page.

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As I usually do, I kept a diary of my mileage. We traveled 3099 miles. I bought 122.6 gallons of gasoline, that cost $521.25. That equals an average price per gallon of $4.22. As usual, the cheapest gas was in Las Cruces and Lordsburg, New Mexico. In fact, those were the only places on the trip that were less than $4.00 per gallon. Honorable mention goes to Fernley, NV. where gas was $4.04 per gallon. The most expensive gas on the trip was (same as last trip) Tonopah, NV at $4.65. I averaged 25.28 mpg for the trip. Considerably less than the 33 I used to average in my Honda.

Now, I don’t like to make accusations or to insinuate that there may be some less than honest filling stations in the world, but…. I averaged between 27 and 28 mpg for every open road segment, except two! Those fillups occured in Buttowillow, CA, a gas stop on I-5 about 30 miles before the grapevine, and a fill-up in Phoenix (also close to the freeway). On both of those segments, my mpg was about 22. It doesn’t make sense to me, that freeway driving at moderate speeds (65 mph) would vary so drastically. And, I know that every time someone complains about this type of thing to newspapers or TV stations, they send someone out to verify that the pumps are accurate. But, the anecdotal evidence that pump gouging occurs is pretty strong. Almost everybody I know has a story to tell similar to mine.

When we returned to Las Cruces, the “monsoon” season had arrived! My neighbors tell me that we had almost 2 inches between July 1 (the official stat of the rainy season) and July 8. After we returned, we had about 3/4 inch in the next few days. That means we have now had almost half our average annual rainfall of 6 inches. Anyway, the photos are being sorted and resized, and Ill upload them shortly.

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Today, as we drove over the Sierras on I80, it was pretty clear in Reno, and Truckee. But when we got down to Placerville, the smoke was thick. And it stayed smokey all the way into San Jose. While driving to Nevada, we did notice a rather large fire in the mountains southeast of Tucson. Then one of the neighbors in Fallon told us there was a fire near Phoenix. Coupled with the fire we had near Las Cruces a week ago, it seems that the west is on fire!

Oh, a quick gas price update… gas was $3.72 in Lordsburg NM; $4.15 in Vegas; $4.49 in Tonopah, NV; $4.03 in Fernley NV (between Fallon and Reno), and when I got to San Jose it was $4.53!

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I do not know who took this picture, but from the exif data on the photo I know it was taken around 1:00 AM on June 15 with a Nikon D3. It appears to have been taken from the east side of A Mountain and is looking East at the Organs. The lefty edge of the fire is the Dripping Springs Natural Area, and the right edge is Soledad Canyon. Our house is somewhere near the bottom right edge of the photo. This was obviously a time exposure because of the star trails in the sky. Also, the full moon was on the 18th, so the moon was pretty bright Sunday morning. You’ve got to admit it is a dramatic picture.

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Saturday night we were treated to the sight of a line of fire, heading down the mountain. And, Sunday morning the flames appeared to be very close to the houses nearest the mountains. By Sunday afternoon though, a wind out of the Northwest blew the fire back on itself, and with the help of backfires set by the fire fighters, the advance towards our neighborhood was stopped. The fire did blow up over the mountains and into Ft Bliss. When it headed east, it sent up an impressive smoke column. I have posted a few photos in my gallery, in the “Views Around the Neighborhood” album. Here is a link.

Fortunately, no houses were damaged, and only a few homes closest to the mountains were evacuated. I was never worried, but I was concerned. If the fire had gotten into the housing area, it could have spread faster and might have threatened the whole neighborhood. But, that never happened. A friend of mine sent me a great photo of the fire taken Saturday night. I will post it as soon as I get permission.

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