Day 7 – Winding down
This is the second blog I’m writing this afternoon. This time I’m at the pool, which has become my favorite place to blog. Adam doesn’t understand why I want to keep working on the computer on the side of the pool. I had gone another 30 hours without Internet, so I was feeling pretty proud of myself. Funny how when I say the same thing to him about playing his GameBoy so much he doesn’t think it’s a big deal.
The kids wanted to get up early to play with their new toys, so they were all up by 6:00 a.m., watching TV and opening toys like Christmas morning. Sandy and I were still drained from the day before, so we didn’t get up until 7:45. Today’s plan was for us to go to the Windmill tour (David and Adam) and the Children’s Discovery Museum.
I called for a reservation for the Windmill tour, and they said they were only taking a tour at 9:00 because of the heat and lack of demand. So I reserved a spot for Adam and me and we gulped down a quick breakfast. On the way, I got to drive by Sinatra’s original Palm Springs home, and the camera was now working. These four shots give a good idea of what it looks like. Very nice, but modest. I can see why he moved to the compound later. This one is so close to the street and to the downtown area that anyone (like me) could drop by and bug him when he lived here. The other reason I could see why he would move is that the next door neighbors didn’t look nearly as impressive as this one. You know these stars have an image to uphold.
We made it to the windmill tour with 5 minutes to spare. These windmills are really impressive. There are over 4,000 operating windmills and 80 separate wind farms in the San Gorgiano pass, the windiest spot on the planet. This pass has a 11,000 foot mountain on either side of it, creating a natural channel for wind to come through. There are four generations of wind turbines (windmills) here , each capable of creating between 300 and 1500 killowatt-hours of electricity. These three can each power the electrical needs of 1000 average homes.
There are so many details to go into about windmills, and our guide (a self-proclaimed “desert rat”) was very knowledgeable. He doesn’t work for any of the companies . . . all of them are privately held corporations. He has just researched on the Internet and in libraries to find out all of the technical, political, and geological realities about the windfarms. He was a one-man show . . . doing all the monologue and driving the bus. He must do well at it. Our tour would have netted him over $220 for his 1.5 hours of work. He does it 3 times a day four days a week. All there is to his operation is an old Ford People Mover (no air conditioning), two phone numbers, one secretary, a microphone and amplifier. But he was a very effective speaker and interesting to listen to. He’s also not a bad photographer, as he snapped this picture of Adam and me in front of two of the largest and newest windmills.
For more information on wind energy, you can read about it at www.awea.org. You can watch a movie of the windmills here.
Sandy wanted to go to the Olive Garden for lunch and see how our kids could handle being in a nice restaurant. So amidst the forty-something ladies and the senior citizens, the Fincher Five shared an Italian meal. The waitress was extra friendly, as she had three kids of her own. She even showed Alex how the cheese shredder worked.
At the end of the meal, she complimented us on our kids behavior, which was a nice feeling.
The Children’s Discovery Museum of the Desert was something that looked interesting in the flyer. We had no idea how awesome it would be. For $6 a person, the kids could play with all kinds of activities. We stayed 2.5 hours, and they still didn’t want to leave. We had dozens of cool pictures of the things they could do, but here are some of the best.
Adam hooked all of these gears up to make a customized machine.
Alex and Anna climbed in and around these ropes, teaching children spatial logic. Anna could figure it out, but Alex kept getting tangled up.
In the “Attic” were all kinds of dress-up outfits. Anna and Alex really enjoyed using their imagination to become other characters.
Alex has always liked firefighters.
And now he’s a bird.
Then he becomes a dog.
There was a VW bug that had layers and layers of children’s paint on it. Adam added some red, his favorite color.
Alex enjoyed this Kawasaki police motorcycle.
There was a pretend grocery store.
And a pizza parlor.
Finally, Adam and Anna tried out the rock wall.
This just scratches the surface of what was there.
The kids wanted one more chance to swim (the temperature is 110 in the sun, 102 in the shade), so we headed back to the resort one last time. I typed the blogs for Friday and Saturday, while the kids bugged me to get in the water with them. So I guess I’ll post this real quick from here and take my final dip in the pool.
Then it’s time to load up the van and have the last supper here. We have to get up at 5:00 a.m. in the morning in order to make it to church in the Burbank area by 8:30. That means baths and early bedtimes for everyone tonight. We’ll see how that goes.
Next Time: Day 8 – 4 hours of flying, 5 hours of driving, and another opportunity to visit an influential church.
The kids wanted to get up early to play with their new toys, so they were all up by 6:00 a.m., watching TV and opening toys like Christmas morning. Sandy and I were still drained from the day before, so we didn’t get up until 7:45. Today’s plan was for us to go to the Windmill tour (David and Adam) and the Children’s Discovery Museum.
I called for a reservation for the Windmill tour, and they said they were only taking a tour at 9:00 because of the heat and lack of demand. So I reserved a spot for Adam and me and we gulped down a quick breakfast. On the way, I got to drive by Sinatra’s original Palm Springs home, and the camera was now working. These four shots give a good idea of what it looks like. Very nice, but modest. I can see why he moved to the compound later. This one is so close to the street and to the downtown area that anyone (like me) could drop by and bug him when he lived here. The other reason I could see why he would move is that the next door neighbors didn’t look nearly as impressive as this one. You know these stars have an image to uphold.
We made it to the windmill tour with 5 minutes to spare. These windmills are really impressive. There are over 4,000 operating windmills and 80 separate wind farms in the San Gorgiano pass, the windiest spot on the planet. This pass has a 11,000 foot mountain on either side of it, creating a natural channel for wind to come through. There are four generations of wind turbines (windmills) here , each capable of creating between 300 and 1500 killowatt-hours of electricity. These three can each power the electrical needs of 1000 average homes.
There are so many details to go into about windmills, and our guide (a self-proclaimed “desert rat”) was very knowledgeable. He doesn’t work for any of the companies . . . all of them are privately held corporations. He has just researched on the Internet and in libraries to find out all of the technical, political, and geological realities about the windfarms. He was a one-man show . . . doing all the monologue and driving the bus. He must do well at it. Our tour would have netted him over $220 for his 1.5 hours of work. He does it 3 times a day four days a week. All there is to his operation is an old Ford People Mover (no air conditioning), two phone numbers, one secretary, a microphone and amplifier. But he was a very effective speaker and interesting to listen to. He’s also not a bad photographer, as he snapped this picture of Adam and me in front of two of the largest and newest windmills.
For more information on wind energy, you can read about it at www.awea.org. You can watch a movie of the windmills here.
Sandy wanted to go to the Olive Garden for lunch and see how our kids could handle being in a nice restaurant. So amidst the forty-something ladies and the senior citizens, the Fincher Five shared an Italian meal. The waitress was extra friendly, as she had three kids of her own. She even showed Alex how the cheese shredder worked.
At the end of the meal, she complimented us on our kids behavior, which was a nice feeling.
The Children’s Discovery Museum of the Desert was something that looked interesting in the flyer. We had no idea how awesome it would be. For $6 a person, the kids could play with all kinds of activities. We stayed 2.5 hours, and they still didn’t want to leave. We had dozens of cool pictures of the things they could do, but here are some of the best.
Adam hooked all of these gears up to make a customized machine.
Alex and Anna climbed in and around these ropes, teaching children spatial logic. Anna could figure it out, but Alex kept getting tangled up.
In the “Attic” were all kinds of dress-up outfits. Anna and Alex really enjoyed using their imagination to become other characters.
Alex has always liked firefighters.
And now he’s a bird.
Then he becomes a dog.
There was a VW bug that had layers and layers of children’s paint on it. Adam added some red, his favorite color.
Alex enjoyed this Kawasaki police motorcycle.
There was a pretend grocery store.
And a pizza parlor.
Finally, Adam and Anna tried out the rock wall.
This just scratches the surface of what was there.
The kids wanted one more chance to swim (the temperature is 110 in the sun, 102 in the shade), so we headed back to the resort one last time. I typed the blogs for Friday and Saturday, while the kids bugged me to get in the water with them. So I guess I’ll post this real quick from here and take my final dip in the pool.
Then it’s time to load up the van and have the last supper here. We have to get up at 5:00 a.m. in the morning in order to make it to church in the Burbank area by 8:30. That means baths and early bedtimes for everyone tonight. We’ll see how that goes.
Next Time: Day 8 – 4 hours of flying, 5 hours of driving, and another opportunity to visit an influential church.
posted by Central Christian College of the Bible at
7:50 PM
