Friday, September 5, 2014

National Parks

This trip we hit the national park trail.
 Our first stop was The Grand Canyon.  I might say this is our favorite, our 9th visit. to quote J. B. Priestly:

"There is of course no reason at all in trying to describe the Grand Canyon  those who have not seen it will not believe any possible description.  Those who have seen it know that it cannot be described..." 
Yosemite
In oregon we went to the Lewis and Clark NP, Fort Clatsop, but no pictures.
 The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone
 Old Faithful
 Devil's Tower
 Mount Rushmore
 Chimney Rock
Scott's Bluff
Lot's of history and beauty and miles.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Family and Friends

Part of our vacation plan was to try and see friends and family whenever possible.  We had some success and some failures.  But when we did hook up we had some nice visits.

We got to visit twice with my father and Fran, and Jodie also made one of the visits.
While in the Inland Empire, I was able to connect with and old friend from my DPSS working days.  Sue was one of my assistants for several years.  She always found a way to lighten the day with fun sayings and cartoon art work.  I have used one of those saying while working guest services at Target.  All of our state forms had letters and numbers to identify them, on of the best was the 210LLPOF  (Liar Lair Pants on Fire)

 Our friends, the Daniel's always let us stay with them whenever we are in California.  Larry and Jim used to work together at Norco, they also rode bikes on the weekend.  Larry & Jim got to ride a few times again.  Linda went to the Regan Library with us.  We have such a good time when we visit them.
 And we love their dog,  Murphy.

We got to meet up with Tammy and Eric, Brittani and Regan for lunch in Huntington Beach. 
 We were able to see my Aunt Lynda (Bobbie) and Uncle Bernie in Mariposa. We have not seen them since before we moved to Texas.
This is my youngest cousin Danny, his wife Katy and son Garrett.  Danny is only a year older than Kelly.  We also got to see David, Kristin and son Matt, although no pictures.  
 We met up with Jodie, Jenna and Jake and spent 2 days at Disneyland.
 We spent almost 3 weeks with Jodie and George in Snohomish
 We had fun with our friends Dave and Linda Grant.  We always have an adventure with them.  We met on our mission when we both served at Morningside Farm on Vashon Island, WA.

 A few days on Vashon Island with Jim and Diane Copitzky.

We also spent a day with Roy and Carroll Chapman although no pictures that day.
 Our visits with our family and friends was a true highlight of our vacation.  There were others we would have liked to have seen, but vacations and illness prevented it.  Maybe next time.

Vacation 2014

Last year I thought it would be nice to take a vacation for about two months during the hot part of the Texas summer.  It took lots of planning to make reservations months in advance, plot the drives, try to meet up with friends ands family, save the money and make the arrangements for a leave of absence from work.

We left July 8, our first stop was at Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas
 Here it is tradition to spray paint graffiti, so Larry painted the Warrzone brand.
 We got home August 27, 2014.  Larry got to spend his birthday driving over 700 miles.  I could not find anything I would want to do in Kansas so after a couple of stops on Nebraska, we wanted to get home.
August 26, Carhenge, in Nebraska, was one of the last places we visited.  I had seen a Yahoo post about the 10 best roadside attractions in the U.S. and this was on the list in addition to Cadillac Ranch.  It happened to be just a small detour from our original plans.

So we started with car art and ended with car art.