Longmount - tired in the saddle

Well, it was a late start today and a long drive across Wyoming, but we made it to Longmount, Colorado in near record time. A special treat for Lauren, in particular, was the Chick-Fil-A we noted as we were coming into town. She has been in withdrawal since we left Texas. I believe this to be the most westward Chick-Fil-A in the US. You would think we had just seen the Grand Canyon or something, complete with pictures by the front door - I am sure she will post.

I managed to avoid the rafting for today, but we now have a reservation for all three of us for tomorrow on the class 3 and 4 rapids of the Crystal River in CO. It will be good to do something besides drive for a change, but we still have a long trip following the rafting - hoping to get 460 miles in the afternoon, to get us somewhere in Kansas. Because you see, "we're all going to Graceland, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee. For reasons I can not explain..."

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Yellowstone + Tetons = Incredible

New favorite state - Wyoming.

We spent most of the day driving thru Yellowstone Park and only saw a fraction of it. We took so many pictures early in the day that the battery died on the camera after being fully charged last night - first time that has happened! Everywhere we went, water and mud were bubbling out of the ground. A park ranger said that there are 4 locations in the world that have geisers - Yellowstone, Russia, Greenland, and I believe Iceland. In the entire world there are 600 known geisers - over 400 of them are in Yellowstone!!!! Where we sat waiting for Old Faithful to blow, you could see 150 of yellowstones 400 geisers. Amazing. Old Faithful put on an incredible show - 8,000 gallons of water and steam blowing 130 feet in the air.

Everywhere you turn is someone enjoying the sport of fly fishing in pristine waters. This is truly an incredible place. We saw antelope everywhere - many beside the road threatening to jump out in front of us. American Bison in the wild and free. We have seen so many elk now that no one even wants to slow down for a better look. We even saw a young wolf cross the road right in front of us, forcing me to break hard to miss him - beautiful site.

We left Yellowstone to drive through the Tetons, for an incredible trip to the South to Pinedale, WY, where we are staying in a brand new Hampton Inn. The room that we have for tonight is easily 4 times larger that the swanky Fairmount Hotel in Seattle. And, as far as I can tell we are in no danger of getting locked in the bathroom at this location - even if we do, the bathroom is larger than our hotel room in Seattle!!!

Limited pictures are coming from today's travels - most of the sights will have to remain as images burned in to our minds. Such a shame because it was beautiful. Lauren is lobying for a rafting trip and Lyn is on board with the idea, so we may have to investigate on our travels to Longmont, Colorado tomorrow.

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Big Sky Country...

Before we get to the Big Sky Country, let me tell you about the last day in Seattle. Awesome time getting together with Emily and Janie for an off the beaten path tour of Seattle. We had a great meal in the Capitol neighborhood where Emily lives, followed by tours of the first Red Robin, Union Lake, a very impressive troll that exceeded all my expectations (Emily has pictures on facebook), and the lights of the city from the gas works area - very impressive although I now glow in the dark (seems it used to be a toxic landfill site).

WIth all that activity, we got back to the Farimont Hotel (a very swanky establishment) a little late for me as I seem to still be operating on east coast time - it was somewhere around midnight when we got back. I went into the bathroom to prepare for bed, and found that when I tried to open the door to get out of the bathroom, the door knob was not working. There was no way to open the door. Lyn and Lauren both seemed amused at my sense of panic (it was hot in there and I was getting a little clausterphobic). They placed a call to the front desk between the bursts of laughter. A maintenance man came up rather quickly and tried his best, but to no avail. I unscrewed the flange to give him more door knob to work with, but still no success. He left saying that he was going to return with a saw. I thought that was a little overkill, but I was ready for any support that he was willing to give at the promise of freedom. He came back with additional help and power tools. I should point out that the door could not be taken off the hinges as they were on my side and I had nothing to work with to remove the pins in the hinge. In this swanky hotel, at 1:00 AM, with neighbors all around us, they literally sawed the door knob off of the door to allow me to escape. I can not imagine what our neighbors thought was going on in our room. And to make matters worse, Lyn and Lauren were laughing the whole time, and Lyn was snapping pictures like a paparazzi - I am sure you will see them on facebook. We checked out as quickly as we could the next morning before the maid discovered the missing door knob on the bathroom door, afraid she might think we picked it up as a reminder of our stay.

Well from there we drove out thru Big Sky Country - Montanna. The ride was quick and easy with a great passageway through the mountains. So far we like the northern route a little more than the southern route - greener and more open spaces with great looking rivers. I can see why people love to live in this part of the country. We are spending the night in Bozeman which is a lot like Athens Georgia (a college town) but it seems they close all the restaurants very early here - 9 to 10 pm. We found it difficult to get a meal once we got here a little late.

Tomorrow = Yellowstone

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Halfway there...

It is amazing how fast time flies ... we are halfway there. While our stay is Seattle has been fantastic and it has been great to be in the same room for more than one night - I have to say I am really looking forward to the ride home and the adventures that this will bring.

I just got back from a monorail ride to the space needle where we had dinner in the top (making a revolution every 47 minutes). It does not sound that fast but I was going backwards and would have had trouble with motion sickness if we were going any faster.

Seattle has been great - a little cool and rainy, but very comfortable for this time of the year. I have been tied up at my meeting for most of the day, but I am looking forward to hearling of Lyn's and Lauren's adventures when they return.

We are planning to get together with some friends for dinner tonight from Hattiesburg - John, you may remember Dr. Phil Stayer. You used to call him Dr. Phil, long before there was a more famous Dr. Phil. We will have one more day of meetings and then back on the road on Wednesday morning to see the Northern Route on our return trip.

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Update - Sedona, Vegas, Frisco, Oregon

I just typed an extensive update and lost the entire thing - so this time it will be the shorter outline form.

Forgot to mention the most interesting sight of the trip to date - a man walking a camel beside the road just before getting to the Grand Canyon. SOmehow it seemed a perfectly natural setting to see a camel.

Sedona - red rocks and great art shops, inspired me to paint when we get home. I can hardly wait.

Las Vegas - best time ever in Vegas. Perhaps it was the company, the food, the inexpensive room in a very nice hotel (Luxor) or perhaps it was the fact that we were only there for one night. It is a very strange city - remarkable on the surface with lights and glitter, but extremely sad beneath the surface for the exploitation and the dire straights of those losing money that they can not afford to pay the light bill for the city.

San Francisco - great visit with my brother, his wife and several exotic birds, but our GPS British Lady (the voice on our GPS) let us down with rush hour approaching by bringing us to the Bay Bridge out of Oakland instead of a faster approach from the South into Pacifica. While waiting for our que to get on the bridge, I had to share the story of the quake from a few years ago that took out several sections of the bridge. It was a dramatic visual experience for me, and I know that Lauren and Lyn appreciated me sharing that story just before we crossed the bridge. As we sat on the bridge while rush hour continued, I could not wait to get into San Francisco. I am not crazy about bridges anyway and this one brought back bad memories. John - Woody (the Scarlett McCaw) missed you greatly, but it seems he had a thing for Lauren. In typical bird fashiion, he was about to display his affections for Lauren by offering to feed her - this can be messy and discusting with large birds as, you might imagine, so we did our best to discourage this activity.

This morning we crossed the Golden Gate, and traveled to the wine country, stopping for breakfast in Sausalito. We discovered that the summer clothes that we brought are not warm enough for the cool bay breeezes and were greatful to find a seat inside the restaurant, while most of the locals chose to sit outside. Great visit at Chateau St. Jean in Sonoma Valley, where we had to try a couple of samples to decided on the wine to take with us for the remainder of the trip. Wonderful drive up from Sonoma Valley to Medford, Oregon where we are spending the night. You could see Mount Shasta (still covered with snow) for 45 minutes before we actually got there. I have not counted the number of pictures that we took along the way, but around each turn the view became more spectacular.

It was an incredible couple of days - and this does not begin to do it justice. Thankfully Lauren has captured it better than I - including pictures.

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They call it Grand for a reason.

Well, my expectations were certainly high - particularly after our visit to a remarkable but different canyon, just a day ago. As we walked from the parking area through some small brush for our first real glimpse of the Grand Canyon, it literally took my breath away. I know Lauren plans to post a few of the hundreds of photos taken today - but there is no way they can do justice to what we observed from the South Rim. Eleven miles across and so deep you can only imagine where the bottom is - I can not describe the feeling that comes over you when you see something like this. Lest you think I am bordering on worshiping the creation rather than the creator, I must say that the feeling that overwhelmed me was the realization of how small I am and how large our creator must be.

I spent a relaxing day on the South Rim, taking numerous photos - including a few distant shots of a Bald Eagle that was enjoying some updrafts. Lauren and I discovered the back porch of an old hotel, open for the general public, that had several rocking chairs and porch swings for enjoying the view. Lauren read, while I tried out the rockers, and Lyn spent some time walking the trail along the rim of the canyon.

I was going to shoot a series of shots of the same scene through the afternoon, to put together in a sort of time lapse photo sequence of the change of colors in the canyon at sunset. I made the mistake of starting this project at about 2 PM and planned to continue it until sunset. To do this I would have had to miss out on dinner with Lyn and Lauren in a 105 year old hotel (the one with the rockers) sitting right on the rim of the canyon. As the afternoon progressed, I realized that there was no way to hold the camera steady enough and allign on the same target to make it artsy. I also began to think about the dinner opportunity, and gave up on the time lapse. So glad that I did because the dinner was incredible. It is not like they had a lot of competition up there, but the food, the service, the scenery, and the company were all beyond compare. What a great close to a fabulous day. After dinner we walked the rim back towards the car and captured a few more sunset photos. Fantastic day!

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The other canyon

Well we left Albuguergue (thankfully as I have a difficult time trying to spell the name of that town) and traveled to the "other canyon in Arizona" that is really quite grand - Canyon de Chelly. It was an incredible adventure - too much to capture in words, but basically this is the location of the Cliff Dwellers - Pueblo, Hopi and Navajo. We got there around lunch time, and had a picnic lunch at the campgrounds before driving along the south rim of the canyon. Some INCREDIBLE pictures will be heading your way via Lauren's Blog. We stoped at one point to hike down to the canyon floor from the south rim to see the "White House." THis was against my wishes, but I am extremely grateful that I was over ruled. It was 2.5 to 3 miles with an elevation change of 600 to 900 feet. My real concern was three fold - starting elevation was 7,000 feet (air was very thin), it was the hottest time of the day (just after lunch), and both Lauren and I are not known to be very graceful on stairs (the trail was very narrow at times with steep drops). I was a little nervous, but Oh my goodness, it was INCREDIBLE . We took many pictures and it is just a matter of time before we can get them posted. The "White House" is the remenants of a cliff dwelling abode, with some artistry on the rocks adjacent to the living quarters. I can not tell you how impressive this was. It actually took my mind off the fact that water was running low and we had to climb back out of the canyon.

We drove past Winslow, AZ singing the Eagles song "Take it Easy" as we made our way to Flagstaff, where we will stay for two nights. Walked downtown to a very attractive inner city area - sadly, no busking, but we thought of how well John would do there on a street corner. Enjoyed a great meal at an old downtown motel called the Waterford.

We are on our way today to the Grand Canyon, and my only concern is that it will be a let down after yesterday's experience, which was truly fantastic. We hope to stay long enough to see the one thing that I wanted to see on this trip - the sun setting on the canyon, while sipping a glass of wine. I'll let you know how that goes later!

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Get Your Kicks ....

Let me just say that Tyler was a fantastic place of rest for Lyn and I, after weeks of too little sleep. We saw rose gardens, brick streets with incredibly beautiful homes, and even had time to catch up on our reading and go to a movie. Lauren and Morgan had a few precious moments together amid the demands of shift changes at the camp and I am sure that with just a little coaxing we could have gotten Morgan to join us for the rest of the trip.

We had a great breakfast with Morgan and then hit the road for our 885 mile trip that would take us all the way to Albuquerque, NM. Lauren had her playlist for Sunday morning worship - no Hip Hop on this one but we really enjoyed our time together listening to the music and doing some readings together.

Our travels brought us through Dallas and north to Oklahoma City before heading west on I 40. I turned the driving over to Lyn and the navigation over to Lauren while I laid down in the back seat to rest my eyes. I was just drifting off to sleep when I woke up to screams (of joy, although I did not know it at the time) and the feeling that we were exiting the freeway. To my surprise Lyn and Lauren had decided to take a detour on Historic Route 66. I can certainly understand their excitement, as I have always wanted to do this myself, but was more interested in returning to sleep, especially if this was going to add to the trip duration. For the second time I was about to drift off to sleep and amid the chatter up front, I could hear a loud tire noise and fealt the brakes being applied rather heavily. It seems the Route 66 made a sharp turn back across the Interstate and we were now on a dead end segment of Route 66 - backing up to make the turn we missed. Our detour brought us into the little town of Clinton, OK that was filled with nostalgic motels and service stations of a time gone by. That was an incredible side trip. Thinking that these sorts of things come in threes, I am now wide awake with no chance of sleep.

The change in landscape from the start of the day to the end was fantastic. We hit a dramatic storm as we entered into New Mexico. It never really hit us directly but the evidence of sleet that completely covered the ground with white, and flash flooding everywhere made it very exciting. The landscape is taking on the red hue that reminds me of Sedona, and I am really getting excited about tomorrow when we hope to see some cliff paintings and perhaps a side trip to the petrified forest. For some reason, I seem to be the only one with an interest in the latter, but we are so close that I hate to pass it up if we have the opportunity.

Lauren is posting some pictures on her blog site now - so you might be able to enjoy them by clicking on her link from this blog.

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Westward Ho Ho Ho

We made it to Tyler, Texas in one piece. Uneventful but wonderful conversation filled day of travel. We just checked in to the Hampton Inn here in Tyler almost exactly 12 hours after leaving Athens, GA. Really, a very comfortable day of travel. We tried to document the day by capturing photos but realized that none of us are photographers. One of the things we thought would be great to capture - since digital costs us no money, is a documentation of each state's "Welcome" sign. I am driving and thought it unsafe to stop for each one of these and suggested that we capture them on the fly. So far we have a piece of one sign - just the edge, no writing. I am thinking we will have to look for more creative ways to capture interesting shots than drive by shootings, with which the delay on my camera tends to miss everything.

We listened to Lauren's deep south play list all day - which was wonderful. And I learned a new music fact, that Atlanta is considered the Hip Hop Capitol of the world. Needless to say there were a few Hip Hop songs on the playlist, none of which became my favorites, but I have a new appreciation for them now.

As the travels wore on we resorted to the Alphabet game - John you know it well. We finished just two miles short of our hotel and it managed to keep us awake despite our early departure.

Plans for tonight - Lauren is meeting Morgan in a couple of hours. Lyn and I are planning a little Tex / Mex and some serious sitting by the pool. I have so much reading to do and am looking forward to a couple of nights in Tyler to get caught up.

We just thought it was hot in Georgia - I have no idea what the temp is but it won't take long to cook breakfast in the morning.

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Four to Go

Well tomorrow is the big day. Finally about to start our cross country trek. It is 6:30 PM, I just got back from Indy and have not started to pack yet. Lyn is still at work and Lauren is not here yet. I just got word today that we need to be in Tyler, Texas (about 14 hours away) by 6 PM tomorrow in an effort to see Morgan leading worship at Camp (really, we do not want to miss that) - so our target departure time is 4 AM. Ughh - I love relaxing vacations.

On the positive side - we have new shoes for the car. I am hoping that the reason Lyn and Lauren are not here yet is because they are buying snacks and goodies for the ride, and we are all excited (especially Lauren) about the prospect of seeing Morgan a day earlier than we had anticipated!! To top it all off, Lauren told me that she has prepared a very specific "regional" playlist with songs specific to the geography that we will be traveling through - like "California Dreaming" for when we hit the west coast - you get the idea. I'll keep you posted on how that goes. We will likely have fun trying to figure out what the connection is to the geography that we are passing through.

Well, back to packing - next stop Tyler, Texas and Pine Cove Ranch!

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One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready

Well here we are just one week before the big cross country road trip, with so much left to do. Inspired by John's faithful blogging in Japan, I have been moved to capture as much of the trip as possible, preparation and a few photos - mostly so John and anyone else who might be interested can enjoy the ride with us.

First need seems to be taken care of - Penny, who hates to ride in the car, needs some company in our absence. Thankfully taken care of by the "Friends of Penny Society", through a combined effort by Sebby, Anna, and Kelly. We are so grateful for our friends that are helping with this need!!!

Monday is the real day of prep - tires and oil kind of stuff. I am then off to Indy while Lyn and Lauren do all the work of deciding what to take in the car - Twinkies or Granola. I may have to hide a private stash of unhealthy food. We plan to eat on the go, saving time and money. On the advice of Patric Ennis last night, we will have a couple gallons of water in the car for the desert crossing. Thankfully Lyn has been watching "Man versus Wild" so she is prepared if we have to rely on survival tactics. Although I am not sure she could pull off the whole thing with the t-shirt on the head - disgusting.

This time next week - our first stop will be Tyler Texas. Morgan, if you are reading this we will have room in the car for one more!

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