Raving Amicks

Great visit to Dieter by the Amick family including Tyler and Mindy.  Never saw the sun or the ground (too much snow)!  Lots of great food and beer.  Visited Dachau (more educational than depressing), Neushuanstein (King Ludwig’s fantasy castle) , Alte Pinakothek (the old museum in Munich – more Rubens than anywhere – King Ludwig designed the museum around the massive “The Last Judgement” by Rubens) – http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/900-772) and the BMW museum.   Spent New Year’s eve on the Oktoberfest grounds with many massive tents and four bands playing,  360 degrees of fireworks at midnight – truly amazing!!!    Flights all on time, massive jet-lag both ways.

Neal Creek is almost frozen over and Hood River is like 99% frozen over. My grapefruit trees are in the garage loving the space heater. When it’s the coldest, it’s probably like 35 degrees aroud the trees.

On Tues. am (10/13) it snowed and stuck here at the house. Melted after about an hour, but it’s a harbinger of winter. (Harbinger was a character in what movie)?

Not a great picture (I was in the car driving) of a dawn rainbow south of Portland . Never seen anything like this (of course, I’m not up at dawn very often). It was just beginning to get light (6:32 am) and the sun wasn’t even visible. What you don’t see is that the rainbow was complete. Amazing!