My son Dan and I headed for Ash Meadows Preserve on Monday with the Point of Rocks as our destination — I was there with Riot in February of 2009.  We were going to look at the blue pup fish that are an endangered species.  Not to worry, the government shutting down also shutdown most of the roads that would normally allow access to the Point of Rocks and Crystal Reservoir marsh lands and a few other places.

We hoofed the short distance to the Devils Hole after realizing we were shut out of the Point of Rocks access road.  So…a few pictures…but not of the pup fish unless you count the picture in the following.

Some very informative reading on pupfish and the underground size of the Devils Hole can be found here.

This is the caged walk area where we could look down at a skanky looking water trough that holds the pupfish.  But do read the link above because apparently, the skanky looking hole is hundreds of feet deep with rooms leading out of it.

And this is the skanky looking trough that is 100s of feet deep — with pup fish floating around in it.

We found a rock cairn and both of us left our mark by placing another rock on it.  WHEE! We were there!!!

And whatever in the hell is this?  Alien life forms are out there, believe me.  We have a plan to go back out in about a week and take our bikes with us.  When we do, I want to drive back to this spot and see what this baby hatched into.

From the Devils Hole, we could see Crystal Reservoir in all its breath taking blue splendor — it’s pretty spectacular to see something like that that isn’t man-made right in the middle of nowhere.  But we couldn’t drive to it because the road was closed. So we missed the marsh lands, etc., but that’s part of our bike riding adventure that’s coming up.  In the meantime, Crystal Reservoir:

A coupla signs just for fun:

And as we were heading out — a different route than we entered — we found sand dunes.  It was a bit refreshing because we all know we live in the desert and many people think of sand when you say desert…so yes, we have sand.

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I’m sailing along with The View from the Box, it’s fun, but would be more fun if I could get some other dealer POV and perspective to add to mine.  info(2)pokerworks.com if you want to jump in.

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If you haven’t read about Tim Giardina, you should.  It’s too bizarre IMHO, for what he had to lose vs. what he had to gain. I agree with my son, “Just who we want in control of our nukes!”

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Greg Raymer did community service to get rid of the charges against him for intending

“to commit a sexual act that is described as an “abominable and detestable crime against nature.”

The document does not specify which “abominable and detestable” sex act he allegedly had in mind, so, you can let your imaginations run wild with that one.”

The above statement is from TMZ.com. Since Raymer was arrested in North Carolina in the sting operation, I can only assume that sex there is an “abominable and detestable crime against nature” — in the rest of the world it would just be sex, right? One thing to note is that poker players may take a licking (no pun intended) but they keep on ticking because Raymer is at the tables doing what he does best, playing poker.

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Well…I’m outta here.  G’nite.