D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
March 2010
Desert Diary
Page: 2
You're only as old as you feel This tale of senior moments comes, appropriately, from Old Grumps:
"An elderly couple had dinner at another couple's house, and after eating, the wives left the table and went into the kitchen. The two gentlemen were talking, and one said, 'Last night we went out to a new restaurant and it was really great. I would recommend it very highly.'
"The other man said, 'What is the name of the restaurant?'
"The first man thought and thought and finally said, 'What is the name of that flower you give to someone you love? You know, the one that's red and has thorns?'
"'Do you mean a rose?'
"'Yes, that's the one,' replied the man. He then turned towards the kitchen and yelled, 'Rose, what's the name of that restaurant we went to last night?'"
Blonded by the light Since it's been so long since our last blonde joke, we feel obligated to close with another, courtesy of Ramblin' Man:
"Lynn and Judy were doing some carpenter work on a Habitat for Humanity house. Lynn, who was nailing down house siding, would reach into her nail pouch, pull out a nail and either toss it over her shoulder or nail it in.
"Judy, figuring this was worth looking into, asked, 'Why are you throwing those nails away?'
"Lynn explained, 'When I pull a nail out of my pouch, about half of them have the head on the wrong end, so I throw them away.'
"Judy got completely upset and yelled, 'You moron! Those nails aren't defective! They're for the other side of the house!'"
Send your favorite jokes, anecdotes, puns and tall tales to Desert Diary, PO Box 191, Silver City, NM 88062, fax 534-4134, email diary@desertexposure.com The best submission each month gets a brand-new Desert Exposure mouse pad, scientifically proven to take the strain out of emailing jokes to Desert Diary.
Postcards from the edge We happily accept photos sent by our readers near and far, with or without accompanying narration of the circumstances that saw them posing with a copy of Desert Exposure. So first we share this shot of Jay and Michele Crawford, along with their interesting account:
"This photo was taken on July 14, 2009, at Grewingk Glacier Lake, Alaska. We were staying at a paradise of a bed and breakfast in Homer, Alaska, and on this day took a water taxi across Kachemak Bay from the Homer Spit, landing at the Grewingk Glacier Trail Head in the Kachemak Bay State Park that lay across the bay. There was no dock so we trod through the water a short distance to reach the beach. We signed in on the trail log and then began our journey. The temperature was a cool 65 degrees on the beach and through the dense forest of large Blue Spruce as we hiked our way along the trail amid the buzz of insects, the calls of various birds and the chatter of squirrels who railed against our intrusion. Eventually the forest gave way to the more open dry, gravel- and rock-filled glacial moraine dotted with hillocks of cottonwoods, low alders and shrubs and occasional wildflowers. The hiking was more difficult over the rocks in the open sunlight and higher 75-degree temperature, and we shed our heavier clothing for the cooler layers that we were thankful to have donned beneath.
"It became obvious that we were nearing the as yet unseen glacier when we were struck by cool breezes, as if we had just opened the freezer door to look for ice cubes. We welcomed the cool blasts of frozen air, since we were hot and sweaty from the sun-filled portion of the hike. As the trail rocks grew larger, we rounded a corner and there they were in their entire splendor: the glacier and its lake.
"We were overcome with awe and it took a few moments before we realized that there were other people at 'our' glacier. Three people, two of whom were visitors from Europe and one local woman from Halibut Cove, were perched on this rock while a local man from the Cove tried to program a camera on a tripod to capture all four of them in a photograph. Jay offered to take their photos in exchange for their help taking the photo we had planned to take with 'the biggest little paper in the Southwest.' We were grateful for their presence since it enabled both Jay and me to appear in the photo instead of just one of us. We were even more grateful when they left and we had the whole glacier and lake to ourselves!
"Jay and I sat by the cold, whitish-blue lake filled with 'glacial milk' runoff and dotted with small floating icebergs while we ate the lunch we had packed in, enjoying the magnificent beauty and solitude. Then we retraced our steps along part of the Grewingk Trail, changing to the switchbacks of the Saddle Trail as we entered a different portion of the dense forest. As we hiked we listened to the sounds of the forest's inhabitants, at one point hearing the roar of a Grizzly Bear. We continued hiking toward the pickup point in Halibut Cove and when we reached the trail ridge there was a spectacular view of Kachemak Bay, the cove and the distant Homer Spit. As we were signing out on the trail log we read a previous entry that noted that the water taxi didn't pick up the hikers as expected and arrived a day late. We hoped it was a joke since we didn't pack clothing or food for an overnight stay. The water taxi arrived late and those 20 minutes were a little nerve-wracking to be sure!
"We had hiked 5.2 miles, gaining 500 feet in elevation through the Alaskan Wilderness and viewed remarkable remnants of the ice age, all while carrying our copy of the July 2009 edition of Desert Exposure. All in all it was a very good day!"
Our second photo comes with this much shorter but no less interesting caption:
"Spike and Angela Flanders, with granddaughter Cincinnati, at Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida. Fort Marion was used to house Chiricahua Apache prisoners of war."
Whether you're glacier-hopping in Alaska or sampling history in Florida, take "the biggest little paper in the Southwest" along for the ride and shoot a photo of yourself holding Desert Exposure. Send it to diary@desertexposure.com or PO Box 191, Silver City, NM 88062.