Hey, Lookout!

My parents recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a stay at the Crystal Cove Beach Cottages. We had made the reservations to stay ourselves, but when they said they didn't want any public celebration, the stay at the beach, on a full moon, well, that was just meant to be.

That also meant that March was only the third month in four years that we haven't gone camping or at least on a family trip during the month (we did go see the Ben Franklin exhibit at the Bower's Museum). We're going to make up for it however in April when we've got a week in Florida and a weekend in Death Valley. In between those two trips, I've got seven days of teaching new fire lookout volunteers. Baseball season starts too, so that works out to only twelve days in the month when we don't have something going!

That's a negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.

This will be my third fire season as the leader for Black Mountain Fire Lookout. In this photo, I'm training one of last year's new volunteers. As I get older, I can't help but think I'm looking like a chubby Tom Skerrit in Top Gun. That Navy blue hat sure helps the perception. I just need some scrambled eggs on the bill.

Andy doesn't see the resemblance and instead suggests that I look like neighbor in the movie "Despicable Me." I haven't seen the movie but Andy was nice enough to pull up this image from YouTube for me. I don't see it in the face, but I'm working on that gut.