February 5 — Pleasant Valley

North of power lines on north side of Ute Creek golf course / 21st Avenue if extended across, west of Pace, south of highway 66, east of Alpine.

Speaking of power lines, do any of my millions (?!) of faithful readers happen to know why the enormous power line poles are balanced on eight bolts, instead of resting on the ground.  If so, I’d love to know.  I’m sure there must be some good reason, but it just looks funny.

Pleasant Valley is on the east side of Alpine; on January 4th I walked it’s ‘sister’ area, Prairie Village, on the west side of Alpine.  The two “P.V.”  areas, side by side.

I can’t drive by here without thinking of ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’, a song I really like by the Monkees, on what I consider to be their best album — Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones.  It was written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin.   I never knew where they got the album title from, although I had noticed that the three zodiac signs are consecutive, but in reverse chronological order.  So when I looked it up today, I see that those are the zodiac signs of the band members.  Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones were both Capricorns, so that’s why they put a name in, instead of repeating ‘Capricorn’.

They call me MellowYellow

They call me MellowYellow

 

 

Pink Flamingo

Pink Flamingo

 

non-pink flamingos

non-pink flamingos

 

A nice house number sign

A nice house number sign

 

I like this striking house color

I like this striking house color

 

Another bridge to cross

Another bridge to cross

 

Fox of the day

Fox of the day

 

nice stone fence

nice stone fence

 

This dog very alert, but didn't feel the need to bark or chase

This dog was very alert, but didn’t feel the need to bark or chase

 

Construction with plumbing sticking out

Construction with plumbing sticking out

 

Before picture

Before picture

 

After picture (mirror image)

After picture (mirror image)

 

Why are these huge power poles balanced on 8 bolts?

Why are these huge power poles balanced on 8 bolts?

 

Here comes the Sun

Here comes the Sun

 

Golf balls on the frozen lake

Dozens of golf balls on the frozen lake

Three Sentinels

Three Sentinels

I’m not ashamed to say that I think the Monkees put out some pretty good music.  They were a

Vegetation of the Day

Vegetation of the Day

Don't Tread On Me

Don’t Tread On Me

‘fabricated band’, and I guess there was some controversy about them using studio musicians for some of their output, but I feel that nevertheless the final result is fun to listen to.

Davy Jones died unexpectedly in Florida about a year ago, the first of the Monkees to go.  An interesting bit of trivia is that David Bowie was also born with the name David Jones, but changed his name in the mid 1960’s because of possible confusion.

This is one of the newer sub-divisions in town, so it hasn’t had time to add some of the curiosities of an older neighborhood.   Construction was going on with something called ‘the Villas’, and I have three pictures below of it.  One shows the ‘mini-bulldozers’ they were using, along with the plumbing connections poking up out of the ground.  The other two show what I believe are two identical (but mirror image) buildings side-by-side, one completed and the other with just the frame up.

I didn’t see a live fox in Fox Hill last weekend, but I did see one here.  It was laying there sunning itself, but keeping an eye on me.  It was still there when I came back the same way about 10 minutes later.

The street names here were all western U.S. cities.  For the benefit of the reader (which I’m guessing nobody may care about!!?!), I will separate them by state.

Arizona — Flagstaff, Tucson

California — Coronado

Colorado — Dillon

Idaho — Boise, Sandpoint

Montana — Billings, Roundup  (about 1700 people…. but the street was pretty small, too!)

New Mexico — Santa Fe

North Dakota — Minot

Oregon — Astoria, Medford

South Dakota — Redfield  (there are other Redfields, including one in Kansas, but I’m guessing they meant this one, since North Dakota got a street. It wouldn’t be fair to leave South Dakota out!)

Washington — Bellingham, Olympia

Wyoming — Cheyenne, Laramie

Total for today:  19,660 steps, 3:24 time

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday  --- here in status symbol land

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday — here in status symbol land