The third weekend in October, in the rain - we packed up the truck and headed East to the desert.  Joshua Tree National Park is such a pleasure to have close by for those quick weekend get-aways.

We left at 4:30 AM in the pouring rain.  By 7:30 we were staking the tent in radiant October sun and blue autumn sky.

For the next 3 days we explored, bouldered, hiked, and relaxed in our little space under the sun and stars.  We had not been out in a long time, and the trip filled our craving to be "OUTDOORS".

Photo: Thumbnails of our trip. Click any of them to go to the slideshow.

So many birthday's occur in September and October, that we usually have one party to celebrate them all: Virginia, Virginia's Mom, Tommy, and Lizzy. The entire clan squeezes into our little place for the mass celebration. The star of the event was Virginia's chicken chili. We got emails from everyone demanding the recipe!

Photo: Virginia enjoys tickle time with our neice (Elise) and nephew (Elder).

Arrghh!  The frustration of car ownership can make you curse the Gods sometimes. Add to that some bad timing and you can feel like you've angered them beyond return.

Although our Ford Focus had some ongoing engine issues - we had hoped to keep it until we were ready to kiss it good bye on our own terms.  We were thinking  another 3 or 4 years. Yeah. Right.  

The 'beginning of the end' occurred during a series of calls from the mechanic over the course of a weekend.  We had brought in the Focus for yet another "noise" coming from under the hood.  In the end, the mechanic found that the engine was nearly beyond repair.  It had seized when he tried to start the motor. He asked us to stop by his shop check out the damage.

On his workbench opposite the open hood were the pistons. Number 1, 3 and 4 all in a row.  Number 2 was in a tin pan. All 50 pieces of it - completely shattered.  The engine block cracked. Our blood pressure rising. Ugh.  Its sucks having to shop for a car when you're not prepared to shop for a car.  Life is what happens when you're making plans - but off to the car lot we went.  We came back with a nice Toyota.

Photo: Virginia really loves her 2002 Toyota Camry