North of McIntosh Lake, west of Hover, south of Highway 66 , east of Airport Road  (also including Majestic Ridge north of  Highway 66)

Total for today: 23,700 steps and 4:52 time.

One new license plate today… Arkansas (cumulative 45) PLUS a Canadian plate from British Columbia (Vancouver to be specific)

I finished reading two books lately.  My kids got me a Kindle (the basic cheapo version) for Christmas a year and a half ago.  Although I’ve downloaded and browsed a lot of books on it, I’ve never actually finished a book from start to finish on it.  It took me a little getting used to the smaller pages, and having to turn the page more often, but after a while it’s not so bad.

Anyway, a few years ago I saw a list of the top-selling books of all time.  It excludes some books which would be topping the list, such as the Bible, the Koran, and the Quotations of Chairman Mao, because of difficulties in measuring how many copies were sold.   I recognized most of them, such as A Tales of Two Cities, The Hobbit, And Then There were None (Agatha Christie), The Da Vinci Code, The Catcher in the Rye, and Black Beauty.

There were three books on this list I decided to read.  The first was Anne of Green Gables… and I really enjoyed it.  There were two I had vaguely heard of… The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.  I read both of them, and found them to be ok, but nothing particularly memorable.

The book on the list that really surprised me was She by H. Rider Haggard.  This was an English language book, but I did not remember having heard of it or the author.   Haggard was an English author born in 1856 and died in 1925, who wrote cliffhanger adventure novels similar to the Indiana Jones movies.  It turns out I had heard of one of his books — King Solomon’s Mines.  So I read these two books, and they were rather fun reads… although a little outdated and politically incorrect at times.

There have been several movie versions made of both of these books; for example, She with Ursula Andress as in 1965, and King Solomon’s Mines  in 1985 with Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone.

H. Rider Haggard wiki

She  youtube movie clip

King Solomon’s Mines  youtube movie clip

Well, perhaps I’ve overdone in on this digression… let me go on to today’s walk…

I spent my summers during high school and college attempting to eradicate every last musk thistle in Kearney County, Nebraska.  It is classified as a noxious weed that would tend to take over pastures and road ditches if left unchecked.  I think this is a musk thistle, but I’m not 100% sure.  The Canadian thistle looks  similar to a musk thistle (and we didn’t need to worry about chopping them out).

Musk Thistle  Colorado State University Extension Office

 

I like these flowers… my son-in-law says they’re called ‘Red Hot Pokers’.  Does anybody have a more ‘official’ name for them?  (I’m looking at you, sister Rhonda….)

 

From Dusk till Dawn is a 1996 Quentin Tarantino/George Clooney/Juliette Lewis/Harvey Keitel/Salma Hayek vampire horror movie, which should make it abundantly clear why the warning sign shown above is necessary.

The following movie trailer is probably too scary for younger audiences… be forewarned…

From Dusk till Dawn youtube movie trailer

The following four pictures are from the farm across the road, at Airport Road and Highway 66.  The first one looks like either a bend-over windmill or a catapult…. so not sure what it is.  And the last one looks somewhat familiar, maybe haystack-related… but I’m not sure exactly what it is either.  Anybody out there know?

 

 

 

 

I talked with Mrs. Santa Bob right as she was leaving, and she said I could put a picture of her car in my blog.  It had a business card dispense on each side rear window… I’ve never  seen that before, but think it’s a nice innovative idea.

I’m guessing business is kind of slow here in June, but she said they’re already booking up  fast for December!!