Day 1 - The Border to Lytton

We fretted about all the things the border guard might take exception to - citrus, fresh vegetables, meat that wasn't sealed in commercial packaging.  The only things he asked about were guns and alcohol.  Our two bottles of wine were safe, so through we went, and almost immediately the road turned from flat farmland to scenery.

Our first stop was the town of Hope to visit the Visitor Center and check out the Frasier River and some chainsaw carvings.  Have you heard the saying, "Don't poke the bear"?  I don't these guys know that one.

Then we went on up the road to Hell's Gate, a narrow, ferocious part of the Frasier, and took the tram down so Mark and Judy could have the Hell's Gate experience.

We are spending the night at one of BC's lovely provincial parks.

Members of the Wagon Train

Here are our intrepid explorers:

                       Dave and Pam Tooker, Mark and Judy Nelson, and Theta and Gerry Brentnall.

                                              On the road tomorrow!!!

Ready to Launch

We are in Bellingham, WA today, getting ourselves ready to cross into Canada tomorrow on our way to Alaska.  We had a fun couple of weeks babysitting Jax and Evie as our start to the summer.  Here they are at the zoo.









After we left the kids, we went up to Seattle to visit with Gerry's cousin, Burden Brentnall, and his new wife, Mary.  We had a delightful visit with them and it was so nice to see the two of them so happy together.


We also caught a glimpse of Mt. Ranier.

Now we are at our jumping off point, where we can see the San Juan Islands, and where the spring flowers are in full bloom.

Local Wildlife

We are getting everything ready for the summer trip.  I've been playing with my camera with some successes, and some failures.  The local wildlife are my models.  I went down to the pond hoping to catch some photos of turtles or frogs, but I found ducklings instead.

Then I went over to the round pen where the silly killdeer have built a nest right in the middle, which makes it difficult for the lady who rents our pasture to work her horse in the pen.  The horse appreciates the break, I'm sure.  So, the killdeer yelled at me for a while and then tried to convince me that she was a poor, wounded, pathetic, helpless creature who would be easy prey for mean old me.  I let her indulge in drama for a few minutes and then backed off to let her get back to the nest.

April 10, 2017

So, I'm playing with the blog to try and remember how to do this.  It's been several years since I played with this blog, so I'm going to restore my blogging skills.  Hopefully.

A couple of weekends ago we spent some time with the grandkids.  This picture is one that our darling daughter would entitle, "pretending that they like one another."

Oct 14/15 -- Meandering Home

We rolled out of Albuquerque about 11 am, and put in a hard day’s drive to Gallup, about 180 miles.  All right – we have our own idea of hard, and today we made it an equally strenous distance to Williams, AZ, the home of the famous Rod’s Steak House.  It’s famous because Gerry tells of eating at Rod’s every year back in the ‘50’s when the family went on the summer pilgrimage to Oklahoma to visit the grandparents.  So, of course, we had to maintain the tradition.

Tomorrow we go to the Grand Canyon.  Yes, it’s open.  For 6 days, thanks to the state of Arizona paying the feds for the honor.  So we’re going to go visit it again, just to spite those brats in Washington.

Oct 12–13 -- Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

We met up with the Tom and Barbara Hughes’ girls (Tom is Gerry’s cousin) in the deep dark of the morning.  We had connected with our balloon crew, but after watching the Dawn Patrol struggle to get the balloons up in the face of weird winds that kept smashing the envelopes down, Todd decided not to put ours up at all, so we just watched the other, bold and daring ones try to launch.

 

 

 

 

This is our crew, Scot and his brother Todd, who flies the First Responder.  Heather and Richard, from Australia, who flew the Fire Hydrant.  Dave, one of the Monohan crew from New York, and Ron, one of the RV volunteers.  They took off for New York and England the next day, so this was our last get-together.

 

 

 

Here we are with the cousins: Garrett and Kristen, McKenzie, and Kelsey and Jerad.  We had such a good time visiting with them!

 

They might not have gotten a balloon ride, but the girls at least got to try out the basket!

Later, after we’d all had a nap and got warm again, we enjoyed a great dinner and stories with the girls and their guys.

The next morning we actually slept in until 7!  How sinful!  Then we fixed our coffee, set up our chairs, and relaxed in the sun, watching the balloons that decided to fly on the last day of the fiesta.  It was the perfect morning, of course, with hardly a breath of air, so they hung in the sky for a long time before coming down, many of them right in our front yard.  It was the perfect way to end the Balloon Fiesta experience.