"FLY ME TO THE MOON..."

Sounds to me like a lot of bad weather on the east coast and up into Canada... Florida is not having a lot of fun, very cold there.... not so in Arizona, another nice day today with a bit of cloud, but sunny!

We decided to take it a bit easy today, as we have some BIG plans coming.... we headed out with passports in hand, and gained access back into the Yuma Proving Grounds to go and visit a display set up by NASA!

They set up a temporary display at the Marine Base to promote the space program, and future trips back to the moon and maybe one day "Mars".

They set up this big blow up type display, it was kind of neat... you can see part of it here with a couple well known "tourists" in line...

They had a machine that printed a picture of yourself on a post card promoting the space program. They also had a movie playing promoting the Mars Mission, and of all things, they actually had a piece of "Moon Rock" with them!

You could actually reach in a touch this piece of moonrock that was brought back to earth by Apollo Mission #17, which would be the last mission to the moon made by man. It was very smooth, and under heavy security. There is only 8 pieces of moonrock that NASA allows out on display to the public. They actually have 852 pounds of moonrock on earth now, but only allow 8 small pieces to be touched by human hands. I touched it and now live to talk about it!

The rock that we touched was actually chipped off of this big piece of moonrock. This is only a picture of it of course... this moonrock is kept at the Johnson Space Centre in Texas.

This is a picture of a Lady examining moon rock that arrived back to earth from the moon...

The scientists now want to go back to the moon and get more rock, they are not happy with the 852 lbs. they own now. Apparently when they do go back they will go to different areas of the moon. The past missions were all in one central area, they did not have the technology to go to different areas apparently...

We found out lots of info today, like now we know there is on 5 shuttle missions left before they start using new rocket of the future. These to below are what they plan on going to Mars with.

We found time to goof around a bit, I asked the guy from NASA if he had any "car antlers" that I could have, as I owe some to Mary, but no luck...

On the way home from the Proving Grounds, we made a detour out through Dome Valley, which is another name for a bunch of farms. Johnny Morrison just can't get over how they farm here yet, he is still in dis-belief.

This first picture is of a sprinkler system that I should have had on our lot in Gravenhurst, my grass would have been much better! This field was more than 10 acres in size, and they use a big diesel generator system to run the pump.

We were out cruzin around and this cowboy blew by us on his horse this afternoon...

Johnny could not for the life of himself, figure out how they make the fields here so flat. Well, it happened we came across this farmer and a couple others making the field flat. They use a laser system and also employ GPS. This tractor was leveling out a field...

This tractor was actually moving earth from one section of the field to another section, it all looked very complicated.... but it all came out flat in the end.

After they get the field level, they go and plant the seeds, like maybe lettuce, and then they open up the flood gates and let her go! This is how the field looks after they flood it. It dries up very quickly in this climate... before you know it they are out there completing the harvest...

It would not be a good day without my favorite pic of the day, a mountain of course... out in Dome Valley.... it is now on my desktop!

Of course, back to the Resort for happy hour and hot tub, and dinner and another Leaf Game....they lost again.... :-((

Big plans for tomorrow! We have decided to leave early tomorrow, and we are going to drive up to Los Angeles in California, and then take the Ocean View Highway down to San Diego. We will stay in San Diego tomorrow night after doing a tour around, and then on Friday we plan to spend the day at "Sea World" in San Diego! Should be a blast! Can't Wait...

There will probably be no blog tomorrow night due to our travels, but it will return with the pictures from California!

till tomorrow, or a little later!...