Other than a few anachronisms, this is pretty much how Allen Street looked in the days when Doc Holliday Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp got into it at the OK Corral, seen on the left. Click on the panorama below for a closer look.

WikiPedia says:

Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday fought Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Billy Claiborne, Ike Clanton, and Billy Clanton. Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne (who later claimed that he had been unarmed, though some reports credit him with shooting one or more times) ran away from the fight, unharmed. Both McLaurys and Billy Clanton were killed; Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday were wounded.

I recently posted about our travel strategy of first driving to Phoenix before renting the travel trailer for our vacation in Arizona. The strategy worked out great and we enjoyed the vacation a lot.

Image: The cruise America Travel Trailer at Apache Junction KOA. Click image for full-size. We were in one of several Cruise America RVs there.

When we returned the rental trailer to Cruise America in Mesa, AZ, we inadvertently forgot Damsel’s Canon Camera battery charger which was still plugged in to one of the AC outlets in the kitchenette. As soon as we discovered it was missing, I called the Rental Supervisor, Joe Morales, and asked him if he would look for it. He agreed, and was to call me back later. He did call back later that day, but I missed the call. By the time I got his voice mail, Joe would not have been at work. I sent him an email asking him if he would send the charger to us, with an offer to pay for shipping and handling. The next day, Joe emailed us back saying he would send the charger and advise us of the cost.

Two days later, the big brown truck of goodness (UPS) delivered the charger. It was bubble-wrapped in a small parcel - a real professional-looking package. Damsel was glad to have the charger since the battery was low and you know how she loves to take pictures.

After the package showed up, I sent Joe a follow-up email thanking him for the effort and asked how I could pay them back. Joe sent this response today:

No problem, just let your friends and family know how great we are, nice doing business with you.

Joe said it - they were great! We’ll be back to the Mesa Cruise America for sure. Soon, we hope.

On a whim, we drove to Point Vicente on the south side of the Palos Verdes peninsula in the southwestern corner of Los Angeles County. We wanted to see the coastline and Catalina Island after the brisk winds we had in the area last night. Alas, when we got there, the wind had only kicked up the sea mist and the visibility was not as good as we had hoped. But, there’s always something to see along the coastline.

The sea was a little choppy, with a few whitecaps topping the waves offshore. The air was clear enough that we could see the island in the distance, but not as razor sharp as on some previous post-windstorm days. We watched the surf and the birds in this peaceful, relaxing environment. It’s good to be retired and able to enjoy indulging our whims.

I snapped a bunch of photos of pelicans, seagulls, the Point Vicente Lighthouse and the Interpretive Center. In one fortunate image, I managed to get a California Brown Pelican and the Point Vicente Lighthouse in the same frame with Catalina Island just visible in the background.

Click on the image to see full-sized.

Behold: FRANKENCARE!

Hat tip: Patriot Post.

Update: Quote of the day from Neal Boortz . . .

And just how will this monstrosity be paid for? Taxes, that’s how. Taxes levied by the looters on the producers to buy votes from the moochers.

When the shooting range where we have a membership refurbished the range, they replaced the conventional heavy target holders with a flimsy coat-hanger and Boston clip kluge. Last Sunday, our regular day to shoot, I forgot to bring the lightweight cardboard backing for the silhouette targets. As a result, I got a heavier duty cardboard target backing at the range.

When Damsel was shooting with her 20 gauge, I noticed that the target was ‘dancing’ less as a result. In the video, compare a lightweight target backing with the heavier one from this time. It makes me think that we need a heavier backing still to help stabilize the target.

It’s too bad that we have to compensate for the cheapness in the target holders, but we have little choice since this range is both convenient and (relatively) inexpensive. We plan to continue experimenting with this.

Yesterday, we put 100 rounds of .38 special through this S&W 686. After cleaning and reloading with Speer 158 grain .357 magnum HP ammo, this is how it looked to my camera. Click for the magnum view.

We traveled light today for target practice. We had another activity scheduled, so we chose not to bring a lot of stuff to the range. We brought only one handgun, the S&W 686 .357 magnum revolver. We also brought two shotguns, Damsel’s 20 gauge and our security 12 gauge - both Remington 870s.

We shot 100 rounds of .38 specials through the 686. At one point, it failed to fire one of the rounds. When Damsel put the failed round back in the cylinder, it detonated properly. The other 99 rounds fired without incident, however, so we’re not quite ready to replace the firing pins just yet. We did replace the pins in both 686s about two years ago.

In the video, that’s me enlarging the already gaping hole in the silhouette target taped to a cardboard backing. We found that the cardboard helps to stabilize the target when mounted on the flimsy coat hanger/Boston clip target-hanging kluge they have at our range.

On the ammo front, we were pleased to find that one of the re-load bins was chock full of .38 special wadcutter rounds. I bought 200 rounds for future target shooting.

I’m not sure of the name of the succulent that produces these tiny flower clusters. It grows on the patio in a little planter shaped like a cowboy.

The flowers are only a quarter of an inch (0.6 cm) across and the entire cluster is only three-quarters of an inch (2 cm) across. Up close, though, they appear to be big and beautiful. Click on the image to enlarge.

How about a good, but not scary, ghost story for Halloween?

From WikiPedia (edited):

The saguaro, pronounced suh-HWAR-o, (Carnegiea gigantea) is a large, tree-sized cactus species in the monotypic genus Carnegiea. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, and an extremely small area of California. The saguaro blossom is the state flower of Arizona.

The common name saguaro came into the English language through the Spanish language, originating in the language of the Tohono O’odham native American nation. Saguaros can grow to forty-five feet tall and ten feet in circumference.

The ribs of the saguaro were used for construction and other purposes by Native Americans. A fine example can be seen in the roofing of the cloisters of the Mission San Xavier del Bac on the Tohono O’odham lands near Tucson, Arizona. The Seri people of northwestern Mexico used the plant which they call mojépe for a number of purposes.

When a saguaro dies, the woody support ribs remain after the flesh decays or is consumed. What you see in the image (click to enlarge) is the ghost (skeleton, maybe?) of a saguaro in Apache Junction, AZ.

We stopped briefly in Quartzsite, Arizona, for gas and some bottled water (the desert makes you very thirsty). While we were parked there, this road runner walked across the parking lot. I took this picture of him from the truck just before he ran off into the field. For a moment, he was a “parking lot walker,” before becoming a “field runner.” At no time did he say anything like “beep, beep.”

No larger size image available.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal posted this item today about MoveOn.org’s attack on Fox News:

MoveOn.org, the ghastly people who brought us “General Betray Us,” have joined President Obama in his war against Fox News Channel. Yesterday we received an email from MoveOn’s Noah T. Winer that begain:

“All year, FOX has worked 24/7 to block President Obama’s agenda—repeating lies about “death panels,” promoting Tea Party protests, and whipping up fake political scandals.

Now, President Obama is fighting back. The White House communications director said FOX is a “wing of the Republican Party . . . let’s not pretend they’re a news network.” To draw attention to its biased coverage, President Obama will not appear on FOX for the rest of this year.

It’s about time Democrats stood up to FOX! Can you sign this petition asking Democrats to support President Obama’s stance by staying off FOX as long as he does?”

We think Fox is too left-wing, so we signed the petition in the hope of remedying that.

Seriously, though, we are of two minds about this, and we should begin by disclosing our direct interest in the matter: We have been an employee of Fox’s parent company, News Corp., since it acquired Dow Jones & Co. in December 2007, and we own some News Corp. stock.

Of course it delights us to see the president and his most unsavory supporters promote Fox as the only TV news network that isn’t in the tank for the administration. Although this isn’t entirely fair to the other networks–in particular, ABC News’s Jake Tapper has shown a strong independent streak–it is well-deserved recognition for the work Fox has done in bringing to the fore such stories as the Van Jones and Acorn scandals, which many other news organizations ignored for as long as they could.

On the other hand, we are an American, and Barack Obama is our president too. It cracks us up when MoveOn.org cheers on the president for “fighting back” by “not appearing” and “staying off.” “Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, and gallantly he chickened out.”

But it scares the hell out of us to think that this also seems to be Obama’s approach to dealing with America’s enemies.

Emphasis mine - Obama seems unable to face his enemies, political or otherwise.

Fox Hunt cartoon via the Patriot post.