And me too.

Since you’re here, you might as well check out Joe’s web log. I’m glad to hear that while my web log may be on life support, his blog is alive and well.

A foggy day in London town.

Every day, I intend to bring this weblog and our travels up to date but what with moving around the country and taking pictures, I haven’t had the chance.  I am disappointed because we saw so many beautiful things on our way to Seattle and are continuing to see them on our way back.  Perhaps when we get home…

One place we stopped for a few days was in Oregon at my brother’s condo in Newport. It was a welcome respite after the hustle and bustle activities surrounding Joe and Michele’s wedding. I love Newport any time, anyway. The opportunity to hang out in a laid back, real fishing town and enjoy fresh off the boat seafood would have me living there if the opportunity ever arose, not that it ever will.

It was also very refreshing, weather wise. Over in Portland, the temperature was hovering around 105 degrees but in Newport, fifty or so miles west and another fifty south, it was a pleasant sixty four degrees. 

It was also foggy and 58 the morning that Susie wanted to walk along the beach. I was going to protest but Susie loves the ocean and the water was only 50 yards from the door so I couldn’t really argue with her.

The driftwood along the beach gives the place sort of an other worldly feeling in the fog especially when you can’t see more than a few feet in front of you. 

Last year about this time, Joe took a beautiful picture on this same beach of his then girl friend, Michele, emerging from the fog and I was so impressed, I decided to get one like it. 

Susie on the beach

I didn’t get the exact effect I wanted (It’s hard to control that fog and that water).  I have no idea how Barack Obama is going to stop the oceans rise as he promised. I couldn’t even get the surf to cooperate.

Joe’s picture will have to remain one of a kind.

Wedding bells

The culmination of our trip was Joe and Michele’s wedding in Seattle. The ceremony was scheduled to be held in the Dahlia Garden of Volunteer Park but about twenty minutes before the event was to begin, it started pouring down rain and the wedding was moved to the boat where the reception was to be held.

In my opinion, the rain  turned out to be a blessing in disguise because after the rain stopped, the wedding was performed on the bow of the boat, a former ferry that has been converted into a banquet facility.  The backdrop was unbelievable, Lake Union, the space needle and dowtown Seattle. 

Joe and Michele

 I din’t know if I mentioned it or not but our granddaughter, Riley Marie, was the flower girl. 

The ceremony was topped off by a great rainbow that spanned the whole sky.

rainbow

Highway 14

We left Interstate 90 just north of Sheridan, Wyoming on our way to Cody in the same state where we planned to spend the night before going on to Yellowstone. 

Highway 14 is a  two lane road carved into the Bighorn Range of the Rocky Mountains. I’m going to put some pictures of the drive on here even though pictures cannot even begin to capture the grandeur of these mountains.

I took this picture when I stopped to breathe.

it's a long way downBeing a life long flatlander, I have never been able to drive comfortably in really high mountains, especially the kind where you can killed if you make even a tiny mistake. Of course, it's also beautiful

It is beautiful, if you have the cojones to take your eyes off the road for a minute.

shell canyon

You might notice the tiny ribbon of highway going down the hill in the left center of the picture. It took all the pucker string I had to get down that piece.

Will wonders never cease??

Yesterday, I was reading about Barack Obama having a plan to produce an automobile that will get 150 miles per gallon of gasoline. I suppose, if he gets elected, he’ll tell us about it and if he doesn’t then we’ll never get to hear about it and we’ll have to continue making the Saudis rich beyond their wildest dreams.

I sat there wondering how gullible these politicians like Obama think we are and my eyes drifted to the story in the next column.

This concerned a man in Cincinnati who was able to convince 19 sets of parents to allow him to be alone with their children (ages 9 to 16) for the purposes of measuring their childrens underwear for a ‘marketing survey’.  How idiotic can people be, I thought once again and my eyes drifted back to the Obama story….

Why don’t you just make it 200 Miles per gallon while you’re at it, Barack???

traveling with Susie

We are on our way to Seattle for the wedding of our son, Joe. We left on Jul 28 and I intended to keep this web log up to date with interesting comments, photos and general information. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a lot of access to the internet. The fancy AT&T Air Card that I bought hasn’t worked since Peoria, Illinois. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just that there is no service west of the Mississippi and north of the Missouri.

We are more or less following the route that Lewis and Clark took a couple of hundred years ago and have came across some interesting historical markers.

Our intention was to camp along the way but a couple of things have interfered with that. We are taking stuff with us for the rehearsal dinner which we are doing for the wedding party and all the out of town guests. The decorations and other odds and ends associated with the dinner took up most of the room in the back of the truck where We planned on sleeping while in bear country. Of course, we made no provision for our daughter and granddaughter who are riding with us. I was sort of assuming they could outrun any bears.

We did a lot of driving the first couple of days, going through Illinois, across Iowa and  a bit of Nebraska .  

We reached the badlands of South Dakota on the second evening and spent the next day visiting prairie dog town,to show the little creatures to Riley Marie.

(Photo by Julie. Yep, they taste like chicken)

We then did the Badlands and the Mount Rushmore area. We took a hundred pictures or more  and the following two were taken by Julie.

badlands

Mount Rushmore

The first three nights on the road, it was too hot to camp out and the mosquitoes were fierce. So we did Motels. We spent our third night in Gillette, Wyoming where they are real proud of their motels. 

There is a lot more to record and we’re currently in Butte, Montana where I have some internet access. If we have any time, I’ll add some more later but right now, I’m ready for bed.