A little detour

These two photos were taken by my daughter....on her cell phone.

Yesterday evening we met my daughter and her husband for dinner...I was asking about Otto among other things and she whipped out her cell phone and showed me these two photos of Otto. They make me smile just to look at them....he is such a love. He loves Jeremy, and wants to go with him whenever he can. He really tries to keep up with Jeremy...if Jeremy is in the garage fooling with a car, Otto is perfectly content to go out there and just get in the car and wait.

He also has this thing of seeing a squirrel or bird out in the yard. He will spot it and do this exaggerated sneaking walk to within a few feet of bird or squirrel and then make a mad dash to try to catch it. I have seen it once and cracked up laughing. So far, any time he has met young children, his demeanor changes and he settles down and becomes very gentle. With us, he is so happy to see us, he about beats us to death with his tail wagging so hard.

I just had to share this...thought maybe they would make you smile as they do me.

Today's churches

Churches are another thing I love to photograph. These are from the trip...I almost wish I had asked to turn around and go back where I got the last photo shown. There were two of these churches, side by side and the quick glimpse I caught of them they seemed to be identical. I was lucky to get this of just one of them, but I will always wonder what the story behind the churches are.

Icebreaker Mackinaw

This is the Icebreaker Mackinaw, decommissioned in 2006. It has a length of 290 feet with the lower hull being constructed of steel plates 1 5/8 inch thick, and steel beams being 16 inches apart...just like the studs in our homes. Instead of cutting through the ice as we normally think of, it is made to be propelled up on the ice and the weight of the Mackinaw breaks the ice.

It can carry 46,910 gallons of diesel fuel, has 6 huge diesel engines that provide the electrical power to turn two 14-foot diameter stern propellers. It also has a brow propeller that is 12-foot, weighs 7.2 ton...it first draws the water from beneath the ice ahead, which weakens it...thus sagging under its own weight..and it sends water back along both sides of the hull reducing ice friction.