525,600 minutes: 03/01/2007

Mar 31, 2007

Day 84 (end of week 12)

More local landmarks

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The wind farm in Rio Vista (about 20 miles from our house). These windmills produce enough electricity to power 700,000 homes. There are about 700 of them in these leased farm area. The blades measure about 80 feet in length; the towers between 350-400 ft tall.

Interesting side note: This area of the wind farm was built in 2003. When Ian was born and in the NICU, every day we drove to Sacramento to see him and everyday we passed 3 semi trailers each hauling one blade of these windmills.

We always passed the semis on the same stretch of road at the same time of day for 6 weeks.

In the next town, Fairfield (about 10 minutes from our house), is the Budweiser Brewery. I went their for a field trip when I was in Catholic school in the 5th grade (great kids outing huh?).

Visiting hours were over so I had to do some traversing to get these pics. Covert stuff. lol.

You know someone tried to climb it....

Trust me....this looks way cooler at night. It's parallel to I-80.

Buh-bye now!

Right across the way from Budweiser is.....
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The Jelly Belly Factory!!
I've accompanied Em on a field trip here and have toured it myself. You do NOT want to tour when they're in production (making candy). The sweet smell is so overwhelming it's sickening.

All decked out for Easter!

The bean mobile...how thrilled does Em look? We actually do see this car driving around town.

I'd drive it!

Mar 30, 2007

Day 83

Well...it is a landmark...to us.

These palm trees line the old entrance into CMF; California Medical Facility.

It's a huge, huge prison built way back in 1955. My dad was on staff there for years until he retired in 1986 (three months later he un-retired and worked at Folsom Prison for 5 years, when he finally really retired at 65). I went there a couple of times with my Dad as a kid and it scared the bejeebers out of me. They stamped my hand with ink you could only see with a blue light so I didn't wash my hands the whole time I was there for fear of washing off the stamp.

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Charles Manson spent a large chunk of his sentence here until he "caught on fire" and was later transferred to San Quinten. My Dad remembered dealing with Manson and didn't have much to say about him except that he was a bozo. (I love my Dad's lingo.)

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CMF is, basically, what I see out of my window at work every, single day.

The Vaca Hills....(sigh) I love these hills. When you see a long stretch of them it's almost like someone lay a huge, green blanket over a giant who's sleeping. In this photo the hills are directly behind CMF.

Mar 29, 2007

Day 82

Happy 4th Birthday Ian!!!

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Four years ago on this day I was wheeled, suddenly, into the emergency OR to have Ian taken by emergency c-section. His heart rate had plummeted and they already gave him a 3 day pass to stay in moms tummy to cook a bit longer. Now his chances of survival were better being outside than in.

We had already been "warned" that he was no larger than 2 pounds. I remember the tought passing through my head "Humans come that small?? and LIVE??"

Well, Ian didn't quite make 2 pounds. He was 1 pound 12.4 oz, 13 inches long. He came out hollering, so much so that in the NICU (once stabalized) the nurse "plugged him up" with a pacifier and he was one happy little bitty baby. Most preemies don't have the suck reflex yet...nobody mentioned that to Ian.

(want the long winded version....go here http://www.geocities.com/maggierda@sbcglobal.net/)

and today....you'd never even know his beginnings were as they were.

Ian's bday present (that's he's been drooling over every single time we go to Target).

Too bad he was not feeling well (still) and fell asleep before Daddy and I assembled the toy. He didn't get to see his cake either.

:(

Mar 28, 2007

Day 81

What's on the other side of the "Downtown Vacaville" sign.

Mar 27, 2007

Day 80

Continuing the landmark theme...

Vacaville just wouldn't be Vacaville without the Nut Tree. In it's original location, which has since been torn down, it had a beautiful train, toy store, restaurant, tiki huts, fun house mirrors...just so much fun stuff. I spent nearly every Sunday there as a kid. It was so sad to see it fall into disrepair. It held so many good childhood memories for me and my husband. Emmy was able to go, as a toddler, before it closed. Late last year they reopened a much smaller version of the park. They brought back the train, the rocking horses and other nostalgic items along with lots of new ones. Too bad it costs an arm and a leg to go there!

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Visit this site for more history of the Nut Tree. These pics (in the link) is how I remember it being. http://www.alamedainfo.com/nut_tree_CA.htm

(okay...freaky coincidence....this pic almost is identical to one in the history page. Creeeeeepy)

Mar 26, 2007

Day 79

Last minute addition...saw this through the window and had to capture it.

The challenge for this week is "local landmarks" so here we go.

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Anyone in/ around Vacaville knows about Buck Avenue. On Buck Avenue sits the Buck Mansion along with many,many other beautiful, huge, and quite old mansions. It's an old, old neighborhoood where, up until the 90's, our annual parade went down. When I was in the marching band in High School we marched down the path you see till it curved around and returned back to the High School. I miss having the parade on this street. The big, old trees that shaded you and people filled up their wrap-around porches and sat on their blankets on their front lawn to watch the parade. The new parade route has NO shade, is very wide and has no personality to it whatsoever. This is what happens when a town grows up.