Ho Hum, Another "Work" Day - (Alamo, TX)

It was another beautiful 80 degree day with a nice breeze.  And the good news is pictures will be back tomorrow.  :)

Our three tram rides were wonderful as we had genuinely interested and curious folks riding along.  The last group was fun and seemed to be as interested in our lifestyle as the Refuge.  :)

Oh, and I forgot to mention yesterday that Sue & Frank, two of our lurker readers joined us on the tram.  It's always so nice to meet our readers and it surprises us when we meet the ones we didn't know we had.  :)

Linda's sister is arriving tomorrow afternoon for a couple of days.  So Linda started cleaning while I ran to the post office, checked on getting a service appointment for the truck, picked up some cash (it's been months), and searched for a new camera.

We've been talking about having a back-up camera for quite awhile, but we didn't want to spend very much.  We had also talked about getting another Nikon camera body down the road so I wouldn't have to constantly change lenses.

There is no top-notch camera shop here in The Valley, so my choices were Best Buy or Circuit City.  I went to both places and looked at smaller cameras and played with them.

But I am spoiled by my Nikon D70 SLR.  I didn't like the feel of any of the smaller, less expensive cameras.  So I bit the bullet and picked up a Nikon D40, the D70's little brother.

It was less than the D70, but it's much more than I planned on spending.  At least it will be a business expense.  Now I just have to get busy writing so I can cover it.  :)

It will allow me to interchange three lenses between the two cameras.  And it will work out well if I ultimately have to send the D70 off to be fixed.  Plus the D40 is a bit smaller and a bit less complicated than the D70, so I may decide I like hauling it around better.

Back home Linda had cleaned the "downstairs" and found that her sister, Karen, will be arriving in McAllen late on Tuesday.  We will finish getting things presentable after our canoe trip.

The bummer of the day was I ended up scraping a fender in one of those tight little bank drive-thru ATMs.  I was trying to be careful and thought I had cleared everything as I was pulling away.  Guess not.  :)

I barely had enough clearance to get out of there at all.  Another lesson learned ... and of course that ATM was out of order.  :)

Oh well, just something else to attend to.  The important thing is there will definitely be pictures in the Journal entry tomorrow!  :)

Comments

[charles Howard]

Howard,
Very sorry to learn about the scratches! We haven't visited an ATM in 10 years since we left our bank back in TX. And they're rarely dangerous in other criminal ways - even in our small town at night. Now we just get $10,20, or 50 cash when we use the debit card somewhere - which happens at least once a week. I think we only go through about $100 in cash transactions/month (mostly fast food or occasional small purchases and tips). The few checks we sometimes receive we can often cash locally, or if large can mail or scan them to convey to our bank for deposit.

So glad you're educating so many about nature!