134 N. Linden Ave Location

Sheridan WY

134 N Linden Ave (Click on Pic)

As of 12-06

One of many illegal aliens working on our house...

Bedroom 1, primed and cleaned...we'll come back to this one last to refinish the floor and paint.

Bedroom 1 still...getting a little more settled.

Walmart providing the shabby chic duckskin specialty curtains...

Betzler mini-storage, bedroom 2, all those wedding presents still in mint condition...

The rest of our stuff in Bedroom 2

Dining room cleaned

Living room cleaned, we're hoping to get the chimney cleaned this weekend and have some heat to work in!

Our favorite room so far...the bathroom...emily has already recorded numerous injuries just getting in and out of the shower..

Stay tuned, a big couple of weeks coming up!

House as of 11-27

Bedroom 1 South wall, door to closet.

Bedroom 1 NW Corner, door to bathroom, getting

primed today!

Living Room South Wall, ceiling crack near fan.

Bedroom 2 North Wall, freshly scraped and

ready for a clean before all our stuff sits in here for

a few months.

Dining room looking East from kitchen doorway, Bedroom 2 to

the immediate left, living room beyond arch. Bedroom 1 and

entry to left of the window. Big dresser type thing in the middle

is getting painted white, and going in Bedroom 2 eventually?

House Layout

House Work Pics

backyard looking at kitchen addition
kitchen
scraping first bedroom
2nd bedroom

living room

House pics 2

House pics 1

Rental Pics

Lago General Carrerra

What a place...marble caves, crystal water, superb trout fishing. Here are a few pics to enjoy while awaiting a better explanation of what we've been up to the past few weeks. If you click on the pics they should appear larger in a new window.

South at Last....Just in time for the start of winter!

Lago Chungara

Highest lake in the world...yes I thought Lake Titicaca was as well, but apparently, Lake Titicaca is the world's largest highest lake (don't ask me how you figure that out). Something like 15,200 feet in elevation...that is higher than the highest mountain in the lower 48. It was a fun day, great weather, and plenty of llamas/alpacas/guanacos to go around.

Arica Pics

Lately

We’ve been finished up with our time in Valpraiso for about 2 weeks now, so there is plenty to fill you all in on. Our last few weeks in Valparaiso were fine, not much to mention about them, except that after spending two months in Valpo, we were very ready to move on. In general the city, though somewhat charming, is overall a bust. That might be a little too harsh…I guess it is a city to spend a few days in, but not more than that. In the end it seemed very dirty, noisy, full of stray dogs that attacked in packs (think of an urban Call of the Wild), dirty, full of patos malos (robbers, assailants, and general bad people), and did I mention dirty?
We headed out of the city on Thursday, April 20th, making our way to Los Andes, a city about 3 hours northeast of Valpo. It would have been a very enjoyable ride if the young boy sitting across the aisle from us hadn’t had lost his breakfast early on in the trip. We learned that Chileans have an extremely insensitive sense-of-smell on the trip…no one decided to open a window, and instead, settled down for 2.5 hours of pure putrid milk sensations…and as those of you who were with us Hydrospeeding know, that is not a good sensation. After several close calls of losing our own breakfast (which as always consisted of white bread and caramel which goes straight to your belly) we finally arrived in Los Andes. We looked around for a while, decided it was still too big, and decided to head to a smaller town that had been described to us as the very definition of calm…or something like that. So, we headed to Putaendo, a small town of about 1000 that was in the foothills of the Cordillera (Andes mountain chain running N/S). There, we did indeed discover the very definition of calm. It was very nice, people were exceptionally friendly and helpful, and also mystified by why we would come to visit their small sleepy town. We went for a couple of hikes there, in the foothills to an interesting art exhibit on top of the local hill, as well as a huge catholic memorial that featured a 15ft high Jesus on the cross out of a solid piece of pine. Plenty of fresh produce as well, especially gigantic raisins and olives…amazing.
We ran into an easter vigil at the huge catholic church on Saturday night, and on Sunday we spent the morning next to a river even closer to the cordillera. All said, it was a lonely strange easter for the both of us…we promised that the next would be with our families back in the states. We hitchhiked back down to the village and caught a ride with a young couple from Santiago, very interesting pair. A story in itself, maybe later. Emily headed back to Valpo on Sunday to catch up with her group from school who were heading to Iqueque in the north via Santiago on Monday. Me, being my cheap self had wanted to save 60 bucks or so, so I wasn’t going to fly up there until the following Thursday. I spent the next 4 days or so in Los Andes, and had a great, if a little lonely time enjoying the city. Los Andes, unlike Valparaiso, is a city to visit. The setting is spectacular, with vineyards in many directs and the Cordillera running north south as far as you can see. The largest mountain outside of the Himalayan range, Aconagua is visible from the city…pretty formidable. The city is there because of both agriculture, and mining, so there is a plethora of fruits and vegetables, as well as above average stores and restaurants. However, with all of this Los Andes manages to retain a unique feel about it, and with the general lack of tourists, it really is a great place to spend some time….which is just what I did.
I met up with Emily and her group in Arica, after a day to myself getting to know (briefly) the city of Iquique. Arica is the northernmost city in Chile, with a similar latitude as Guadalajara mexico…but even hotter. It is on the coast of Chile, with the sand of the Atacama desert shrouding it down to the sea. The 5 hour drive from Iquique to Arica is something else I should mention. I got a window seat, and as we climbed the switchbacks out of the city, everyone closed their curtains and started to sleep, but not me…I figured I wasn’t going to get to drive this road again, so I had better look out the window the entire way, after all, there would be plenty of country to see. However, after about 45 minutes of nothing but absolute flat sandscape, I decided that a little sleep couldn’t hurt. The ride had a few highlights, a few old mansions in the middle of nowhere that could be traced back to nitrate barons during the 1890s-1940s, as well as interesting shapes and figures formed by wind erosion.

Gotta run, more later (pics as well)