Shania's Roadtrip

8-16-09 Cow Train

2009-08-16T18:28:00.001-07:00

8-16-09 Cow Train
Originally uploaded by roswellsgirl

Today we drove home. The wonderful thing about driving home is realizing that we live in a place that is pretty wonderful too. I love to travel and see new things but I am so thankful to have such beauty close to home. We stopped in Pashastin, Wa a little town in the Cascades. The farm stand was just brimming with colorful fruits and vegetables. Thought this little Cow Train and Barn was worth a photo.

8-15-09 Sun Setting on Tea Pot

2009-08-15T21:53:00.001-07:00

8-15-09 Sun Setting on Tea Pot
Originally uploaded by roswellsgirl

A bit of Americana for my photo today. This little gas station in Zillah, Washington was built during the TeaPot Dome Scandal of the 1920s. Currently, it is not being used as a gas station. The price on the pumps reads $1.76 so it has been a while. Although we did lots of driving today, I did have some interesting photos to choose from today. We started our morning in Boise. Boise is a neat little capital city, but the reason Erik likes to go there is that it is the closest place with either a Texas Roadhouse or a Sierra Trading Post. We spent time at both. Erik says that the drive through the North East corner of Oregon is boring, but I don't think so. The blue mountains are beatiful with the stark landscape and the sky that goes forever. We spotted a train carrying fuselages of air planes. I took some photos, but didn't really get a good shot. It was really interesting to see plane parts being carried by train. We also stopped at the Pendelton Mills in Pendelton hoping for a goot photo. (We have been there before for an interesting tour of the mill.) The real attraction here was a huge Great Dane named Beat who was traveling with his people from coast to coast. Beat was impressive, but no where near as cute as Roswell. We then headed up into Washington to Yakima. This part of Washington is known for fruit orchards and vineyards. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset as we rolled into Yakima for the evening.

8-14-09 Idaho Farmland

2009-08-14T18:00:00.001-07:00

8-14-09 Idaho Farmland
Originally uploaded by roswellsgirl

Since we still had 3 days before we needed to return home, Erik suggested that we head to Boise today. This journey would not be on any planned route home, In fact, it is adding about 900 miles to the trip. But, we had never been in the Eastern part of Idaho and we like Boise, so we decided to go. 640 miles of canyons, rolling hills, farm land, and snaking rivers. Lots of driving and not much stopping. We traveled in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark and the Oregon Trail Pioneers. All of my photos today were shot out of the window of the car as we traveled past at 70 miles an hour. Not the best day for photography, but we did see lots of beautiful country.

8-13-09 Montana Wildflowers

2009-08-13T20:17:00.001-07:00

8-13-09 Montana Wildflowers
Originally uploaded by roswellsgirl

Today we left the beautiful Canadian Rockies and headed out on another adventure. Today was all about rolling plains, fields of wheat, Native American communities and watching stormy skies. We passed by the East side of Glacier National Park. Soon after our last visit to Glacier, they had huge forest fires. Sadly, the effects of those fires is still really evident. But new growth is starting to emerge in the form of colorful wildflowers. Lots of beautiful wildflowers and the vastness of the big Montana sky graced us as we drove to Great Falls, Montana.

8-12-09 Banff Reflections

2009-08-13T06:49:00.001-07:00

8-12-09 Banff Reflections
Originally uploaded by roswellsgirl

Our last day in this majestic area. We traveled up the Ice Field Parkway to Jasper National Park stopping to hike to amazingly blue lakes along the way. Throughout the day, we watched the sky do amazing things as the clouds would roll in and out. At the Athabasca Glacier, we waited out a down pour of rain. When the rain had ended, the scenes were spectacular as the sun and mountains started to peak through. We were in the puffy white clouds at the tops of the mountains. We hiked to the edge of the glacier. This is a longer hike each year as the glacier continues to recede. We stopped in Banff for dinner before heading to our hotel in Canmore. We took one more drive out to Vermillion Lakes and were treated to this beautiful reflection.

8-11-09 Urban Landscape

2009-08-11T21:49:00.001-07:00

8-11-09 Urban Landscape
Originally uploaded by roswellsgirl

We left the amazing Banff landscape and headed to the urban landscape of Calgary for the day. We chose to explore Calgary today because it was supposed to rain in the mountains today. We drove from the mountains to the prairie to the surprisingly big city of Calgary. We stopped at the Canadian Olympic Center. This was the home of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. Lots of daredevil things to do there like roll down the hill in a giant hamster ball or take a Ski lift up to the top of the mountain and ride your bike down. We decided to stop on the West side and took the C-Train into town so that we could explore the city. This urban landscape doesn’t hold a candle to the amazing beauty we have seen the past few days in the Canadian Rockies, but we enjoyed a nice day of exploring a new city.

8-10-09 Moraine Lake

2009-08-10T22:17:00.001-07:00

8-10-09 Moraine Lake
Originally uploaded by roswellsgirl

This morning we explored two beautiful alpine lakes. The first was Moraine Lake. Absolutely stunning blue, surrounded by mighty mountains. We enjoyed a beautiful walk around the lake. We then headed to one of the most photographed lakes in the world. Lake Louise. Lots of people, but again, absolutely stunning. We then headed to Radium Hot Springs in Kootenay National Park. The drive was beautiful. At one point, we were warned that there were wolves on the road and not to stop. We didn't see any wolves, but we did see a moose. On the way back, we drove the Old Bow River Parkway. We saw an ospreys on their nest above a bridge. Again tonight, the sky was incredible and the evening light lit up the massive mountains was awe inspiring.

8-9-09 Early Evening Light

2009-08-10T06:17:00.001-07:00

8-9-09 Early Evening Light
Originally uploaded by roswellsgirl

Beautiful day in Banff today. We started off by taking the Minnewanka Loop. The lakes were beautiful this morning with the reflection of the mountains in the water. We saw big horn sheep and mountain goats along the way. We then explored the beautiful, yet crowded and touristy town of Banff. Although I have seen photos of the Banff Springs Hotel many times. I still gasped at my first glance of this massive inn. We took a walk in the evening up to a lookout to take photos of the Inn. It was impossible to take it in up close. With rain threatening we ended our day with a drive around Vermillion Lakes. There was a mixture of blue sky and puffy clouds and looming gray clouds. The late afternoon light illuminated the mountains in the distance. Great day. We are so thankful to get to spend time in this very beautiful part of the world.

8-7-09 Church at Spencer's Bridge

2009-08-07T21:29:00.001-07:00

8-7-09 Church at Spencer's Bridge
Originally uploaded by roswellsgirl

Beautiful drive from Mount Vernon to Kamloops today. We passed through amazing, grandeur and diverse country. Not a boring, mundane place on the route. A man at a restaurant in Hope suggested we take old highway 1 up to Kamloops. This road follows the Frasier and Thomson Rivers winding through gorges and blasting through tunnels. This is the gold mining route and along the way we past several little historic towns. Hard to believe that Yale, BC was once the largest city West of Chicago and North of San Francisco. If you blinked now, you would miss it. We saw lots of old wooden churches that I am sure have many stories to tell. At one point, we were surprized by 4 big horn sheep grazing on the side of the road. My photos aren't as nice as I would have liked due to the haziness caused by the nearby forest fires. We did seem flames, but we did see the helicopters with the big buckets for water. We were surprised at how hot it is in Kamloops. Erik realized he forgot his fleece, which he will need in Banff. We went to a store to find him a fleece. When we asked where they might be, the lady looked at us like we were crazy. Why would we possibly need a jacket in weather like this? (we found a jacket on clearance)

7-19-09 Waiting at the Border

2009-07-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

7-19-09 Waiting at the Border, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

We decided to cross the border at the Aldergrove Crossing which is in farm land. Still had quite the wait. This was the view from our car. The fireweed is pretty all over our region right now.

7-18-09 Vancouver

2009-07-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

7-18-09 Vancouver, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

It was a spectacular sunny day in Vancouver today. We spent the whole day in out door endeavors. We started off here at Queen Elizabeth Park and then headed to Granville Island finishing our day in the historic fishing village of Steveston.

7-17-09 Baby On Board

2009-07-17T16:01:00.000-07:00

7-17-09 Baby On Board, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Saw lots of amazing stuff today including majestic mountains, mighty waterways, quaint fishing villages, colorful sea life and a breath taking sunset. I chose to go with one of the more unusual and endearing things I saw today. Not sure about Bella’s ears and I am not a fan of motorcycles, but I thought that this photo speaks loads to the relationships we have with our pets and the important part they play in our lives.

7-16-09 Eagles

2009-07-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

7-16-09 Eagles, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Beautiful day exploring the Sunshine Coast. Lots of neat little villages, coves, huge trees and such. The ferry from Earl's Cove to Saltery Bay reminded me a lot of the fiords in Norway. breathtakingly beautiful. As we were headed back to our camping area after dinner tonight, we saw lots of majestic eagles purched in trees along the water. My camera isn't good at getting close ups of eagles in trees. Believe me, I have tried. So, I decided to focus on the eagle in the totem pole and just point out that there is a real Bald Eagle in the tree in the background.

7-15-09 Float Planes

2009-07-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

7-15-09 Float Planes, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Camping on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia. This was the last photo I took before my brand new camera when caput. Luckily, I brought my old one as a back up. Since you have to cross the boarder and take a ferry, this feels really remote, but we are actually only about 100 miles from home.

7-1-09 Welcome to Seattle

2009-07-01T15:58:00.000-07:00

7-1-09 Welcome to Seattle, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Long day including a 2 hr weather delay on the tarmac, a 6 hr flight and then crazy construction traffic all the way home. But I made it. This is what greeted me as we flew in to Seattle.

6-30-09 After the Rain

2009-06-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

6-30-09 After the Rain, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Beautiful sky after a downpour at the Lincoln Memorial. Alison and I had a lot of fun touring the monuments at night. Check out the rest of the photos in the set.

6-29-09 Capitol Q

2009-06-29T15:55:00.000-07:00

6-29-09 Capitol Q, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

There is just something about Texas. All around the world, I have found Texas themed restaurants. This is in Capital Q in Chinatown in DC. The sign on the outside said Texas BBQ in Chinese. My alma matter SFASU is up in the corner. Right below Viva Ecuador! (Where I frequented the Texas Grill and Bar in Quito.... :)

6-28-09 Red White and Blue

2009-06-28T15:54:00.000-07:00

6-28-09 Red White and Blue, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

I had a great time going on a photo safari today. Wish that it hadn't been cloudy, but it was still a lot of fun and I saw some really cool things. I decided to go patriotic today since I am in the Nation's Capital. I also enjoy strolling through the Eastern Market. The botanical gardens were beautiful. The architecture was great. The food was yummy at the Folklife Festival. The Newseum is also are really neat addition to the many museums in D.C. (Just wish it wasn't so pricey.)

6-27-09 Peace

2009-06-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

6-27-09 Peace, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

OK, I know that I am in DC and there are so many historical and monumental things that should be my photo of the day. Today I haven't had a lot of time to look for photos, but on a walk from my hotel to Dupont Circle, I saw lots of beautiful architecture, statues and art. But for some reason, when I downloaded my pictures, this is the one that stood out to me. And, it just so happened, that I was walking down the street talking to my husband of 11 years today, when I spotted this photo. Maybe that is what makes it special. As I explore DC, I will continue to post all of my photos on my Washington DC page.

6-26-09 Discovery

2009-06-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

6-26-09 Discovery, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Another day of learning and networking with inspiring educators at Discovery.

6-25-09 Virtual Friends F2F

2009-06-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

6-25-09 Virtual Friends F2F, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Today I am at the Discovery Educator Network Leadership Symposium. I am meeting lots of people I feel I know well from our virtual conversations and professional development. Even though we learn lots from each other even when we are on opposite ends of the globe. It is still great to get to visit and learn from others face to face. This is Dennis in person, next to Dennis' online presence.

6-24-09 Freedom Is

2009-06-24T15:49:00.000-07:00

6-24-09 Freedom Is, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

I met this little Navajo Grandma at the Lincoln Memorial where I offered to take a photo of her with her daughter. She was excited to hear that I had taught on the Navajo Nation. I was able to use the little bit of Navajo I still remember. Which made her eyes light up. This photo was taken at the nearby Korean War Memorial. I had fun wondering around DC today and I took lots of photos. But this little lady captured the spirit of those who make the pilgrimage to our nation's capital to celebrate freedom. She is a proud American, even though our American government hasn't always done her proud.

My photos from today...

6-23-09 Rainbow Wall

2009-06-23T15:47:00.000-07:00

6-23-09 Rainbow Wall, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Today was a travel day. Left the hotel at 4am in Seattle and traveled all day to get to another non descript hotel in the DC area. Not a lot of photo opportunities. This rainbow wall was a bit of art in the Dulles Airport.

4-4-09 Covered Bridge

2009-04-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

4-4-09 Covered Bridge, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Just driving shots today. A long way to go and ready to get home. It has been a great trip. Fun and spontaneous, waking each morning not knowing the direction we would take. Saw this covered bridge from the freeway on the way down, but we were in search of sun and didn’t stop. This time, we decided to take a closer look.

4-3-09 California Fruitstand

2009-04-03T15:45:00.000-07:00

4-3-09 California Fruitstand, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Today was a driving day but since we were driving through the prime agricultural region, I made sure that we stopped at a few fruit stands along the way. Had one of the tastiest oranges ever

4-2-09 Desert Surprise

2009-04-02T15:43:00.000-07:00

4-2-09 Desert Surprise, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Very different day today as we spent the day in the resort towns of La Quinta, Palm Desert and Palm Springs. Gone is the wildness of the Mojave Desert, in it’s place, manicured lawns, irrigation and brightly colored flowers. The flowers are beautiful, but there is something special about the surprise of desert wildflowers. As we walked around the resort today, we did see a few surprises such as a road runner with a lizard in his mouth and this happy little hummingbird

4-1-09 Salton Sea

2009-04-01T15:39:00.000-07:00

4-1-09 Salton Sea, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Beautiful day in the desert. We enjoyed our drive through Joshua Tree National Park stopping to climb on rocks and take pictures of the many wildflowers along the way. We are spending a few days at a resort in Palm Desert. (Thanks Priceline). Today we drove around the Salton Sea. Not really that exciting, but we caught the sunset.

3-31-09 Rhyolite Ghost Town

2009-03-31T15:36:00.001-07:00

3-31-09 Rhyolite Ghost Town, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

We decided to spend the day exploring Death Valley. After a yummy breakfast burrito, we explored Rhyolite, a funky little Ghost Town near Beaty, NV. Erik and I have vague memories of being here before but can’t quite remember why we were there, but didn’t go into Death Valley. My guess is that it was during the summer and Death Valley would have been too hot. Erik, loves old mines and rocks and stuff. So we climbed up a hill and explored, (from behind the protective fences) some old mine shafts. As always, I found some wildflowers along the way. We then headed back into Death Valley. Pictures really don’t do it justice. It is so vast, stark and breathtaking. We went to Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the Americas at 238 ft below sea level. We then headed for Baker, CA. We saw some really huge sand dunes along the way. When we got to Baker, we recognized Mad Greek’s Café from Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. It is really funny to see this Greek restaurant out in the middle of the desert. I’m not much into Greek food, but it seemed the thing to do. We then headed to Barstow, along the way we were blessed with an amazing desert sunset.

3-31-09 Rhyolite Ghost Town

2009-03-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

3-31-09 Rhyolite Ghost Town, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

3-30-09 Poppies Galore

2009-03-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

3-30-09 Poppies Galore, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

My husband said today that he was glad that he married me in the digital age. I took tons of photos today. Good think to have digital and a pro Flickr account. Really, there are just two main subjects. We spent the morning at the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve. Lots and lots of wildflower shots, plus a few interesting reptile shots. We then headed to Death Valley. Lots of rocks and sand dunes. Not much opportunities for wireless, so I am not able to do all the fun things that I would like to do with my photos yet, but will clean them up, organize and geotag when I get a change. Impossible to pick just one photo. How can I pick the rattlesnake with all those beautiful wildflower scenes. And then there are the sand dunes, so very different. I finally chose a wildflower shot, because I love wildflowers. As we brainstormed ideas for our trip, the Poppy Reserve was top on my list.

Here is a slideshow of all our Spring Break Photos.

3-29-09 California Hwy 49 S

2009-03-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

3-29-09 California Hwy 49 S, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

This morning we really did not know where we were going to go. Snow in the mountains East of us was hampering our original plans so we were just kind of flying by the seat of our pants. We decided to head towards the desert since the desert is something that would not be fun to do during the summer. Instead of heading straight there, I suggested that we drive over to the foothills and head South on 49. Wow! What a beautiful drive! We oohhed and ahhed the whole way as we drove through rolling hills covered in wildflowers. We stopped in several cute little mining towns along the way. Really a great day. Our original goal was to make it to Lancaster for the night. We only made it to Bakersfield, but the day was well worth the slower pace. I told Erik that it is going to be hard to beat day two of our Spring Break adventure.

3-28-09 Mount Shasta Drive by

2009-03-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

3-28-09 Mount Shasta Drive by, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

Day one of our journey towards the sun. We left Mount Vernon in a rainstorm and headed south on I5. Didn’t find sunshine until about Eugene, Oregon. Erik wasn’t big on stopping. His idea was that we get as far as we could in one day. Anything worth seeing we could easily go back to he said… Our goal was to get at least as far as Redding, California. Erik did stop for me to take photos of Mount Shasta, but I chose this driving shot, because I thought that it spoke to the day of non-stop driving better. We made it to Redding. Ate at a funky little steakhouse called Jacks, frequented by bikers and then headed on down to Sacramento for the night. 815 miles in all.

1-18-09 Inukshuk

2009-01-18T15:24:00.000-08:00

1-18-09 Inukshuk, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

This morning we woke up to more fog. We couldn't even tell which direction we were facing when we looked out our hotel window. We decided to go for a walk on the beach anyway. Enjoyed watching dogs play, runners run and birds fly. This statue is an Inukshuk, an ancient Inuit sign and the symbol for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Everywhere we went, there were signs of the city getting ready for the Olympics. So, even though this is a shot in the fog, it had to be my photo of the day. Later in the day, as we were walking along Fisherman's Wharf, the sun came out in a glorious way and I was able to get some cool photos of the boats, the bridge and the city reflecting in the water. Check out all of our photos from our wonderful weekend in Vancouver here.

1-17-09 Robson at Night

2009-01-17T15:28:00.000-08:00

1-17-09 Robson at Night, originally uploaded by roswellsgirl.

We have had a great day in Vancouver. Very foggy, so I've had to think of different kinds of shots. We ate a yummy lunch at Vij's an Indian Restaurant and the had a great time exploring Granville Island. I had lots of fun taking pictures in the market. Markets are one of my favorite places to take pictures. After a nice Malaysian dinner we went for a walk down Denman and then down Robson. The highlight of the day was definitely all the great food we ate and saw. Our hotel room overlooks the English Bay, we think. Actually, we can see anything out our window because of the fog. Here are some other photos from our day.

2008-07-22T19:22:00.000-07:00

RoadTrip 2008

2008-07-22T16:58:00.001-07:00

7-17-08

2008-07-17T22:16:00.000-07:00

We started our morning in Helena. We went on a nice tour of their capitol building. The building has recently been restored to the way it looked in 1902 when it was built. It was more colorful than most capitols we have visited. There were many paintings depicting Montana history including a HUGE painting of Lewis and Clark meeting the Salish Indians painted by Charles Russell. We ate lunch at a funky place called the Staggering Ox and then headed west. Montana is a beautiful state and we really enjoyed the drive through the mountains. We drove through the skinny part of Idaho. We stopped in Wallace an old Silver mining town, which for some reason touts itself as the center of the universe. They also boast the last stop light on I-90. Then it was off to Spokane. We are staying right downtown on the river. We enjoyed walking through a car show downtown. Erik saw his models like his first and second car and enjoyed looking at the other cars as well. We ate down by the river and then enjoyed a nice walk. We stopped at the giant Radio Flyer wagon which is really a big slide. Erik was going to take my picture but people kept coming to slide on the slide. We sat on a bench and enjoyed watching all sorts of kids and some parents sliding on the slide. We then came back to our hotel and went for a nice swim. Can't believe that we will be home tomorrow. Really looking forward to seeing Roswell, my garden and sleeping in my own bed.

7-16-08

2008-07-16T20:46:00.000-07:00

Another great day. We left Cody early in hopes of having a better chance of seeing wildlife in Yellowstone. Not as much luck today. I think that it was just the route we took today had other amazing things to see. We drove along Lake Yellowstone, which had a glassy finish at this time of the morning. We got out and went for a walk at Giant Thumb. I had noticed a large brown rock nearby, I was startled when I realized that large brown rock was actually a very large bison. We got to Old Faithful just in time to see it erupt and then we walked along the trails to see many other geysers. Check out the Old Faithful webcam. This area is really a super volcano with lots of seismic activity. It is surreal to see the bubbling pools all around. As we walked, we enjoyed seeing more bison, pronghorns and elk. After exploring the geysers and getting a bit too much sun, we headed out the west entrance to the park and into Montana. We drove through beautiful and wild Montana and arrived in Helena, the capital of Montana. On our last roadtrip, we got a theme going of visiting state capitals. This will be another to add to our list. We had a nice dinner in the historic part of town and then enjoyed a nice walk through the historic downtown. Really a lot of very unique architecture in the area. We look forward to exploring more tomorrow before heading to Spokane.

7-15-08

2008-07-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

Today we stayed in the Wild West Town of Cody. Erik loves Sierra Trading Post. This is mainly a mail order catalog for outdoor gear, but they do have 4 stores. On this trip, Erik has visited 3 of them. One in Boise, one in Cheyenne and now the one in Cody. We spent most of our day visiting the Buffalo Bill Cody Historic Center. This is a series of 5 museums. They call it the Smithsonian of the West. The first museum we visited was the firearms museum. I wasn't too interested in the walls and walls of guns, but it was a little bit interesting to read about who owned the guns and the history behind them. We then visited the museum of American West Art. This had lots of paintings by Charles Russell and Frederick Remington among others. Was especially interesting to read letters that Charles Russell had written which included hand painted stationary. The next museum was the Museum of the Plains Indians. It did a nice job of showing the past and the present of this group of people. The Buffalo Bill Cody Museum might have been the most interesting since it told the story of the man who the town was named after. He was quite the character and was world famous for his Wild West Show. The last museum was the natural history of the Yellowstone area. It was interesting to see and read about the animals and plants at different elevations. We were pretty exhausted after the museums. We went and had some bar be que and then headed downtown to see the gunfight enactment at the Irma Hotel. It was funny, because as we were watching, I was talking to my mom on the phone and she kept hearing gun shots. We then walked through the town looking at the shops and galleries. Tomorrow will be another day in the wild as we head back into Yellowstone for some more exploring.

July 14, 2008

2008-07-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

Today we have enjoyed the beauty of the amazing country around Yellowstone and experienced a little bit of the Wild West Culture. We headed out early to make the drive to Yellowstone. It is about a 50 mile drive from Cody to the East entrance of the park. The drive to the park was beautiful and it just got better. As we drove through Sylvan Pass, we saw wildflowers carpeting the ground. We stopped at several spots as we went seeing mountain blue birds, dear, elk and even a BEAR! The bear had just been swimming and was walking towards one of the many steaming fountains in the park. My pictures aren't that good, but the sighting was amazing. As we drove further into the park past Yellowstone Lake, we began to see lots of bison. There were many mother and babies. We even saw some swimming across the river. We went to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and saw 3 mighty waterfalls. Yellowstone is really amazing. It is such a blessing that we still have wild places like this to explore. On the way out of the park, we drove out the Northeast exit and through Cooke City on the Beartooth Highway and the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway. This was an absolutely amazing drive where switchbacks seemed to climb to the very top of the earth. There were lots of really interesting rock formations and the beauty of the wide valleys, box canyons and snowcapped mountains was absolutely breathtaking. We made it back from Yellowstone in time to have a nice dinner and catch the Nite Rodeo. Each night during the summer, Cody has a rodeo. It had been a long time since either of us had been so we thought we would check it out. What an interesting sport. I spent a lot of time cringing afraid the horse was going to turn too sharply and fall or a bucking horse or bull was going to stomp on a fallen cowboy. I especially had trouble watching the cattle roping. Poor little calves. But all in all, the rodeo was entertaining and very much a part of the Cody scene.

7-13-08

2008-07-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

We headed North out of Colorado this morning. One of the first sights we saw after we crossed the border into Wyoming was a real live cattle round up. Not sure why this was going on. We know that Frontier Days are coming up soon in Cheyenne, I am guessing that it had something to do with that. I am guessing in the old days, they didn't need the police to direct traffic when they were going on a cattle drive. Erik said that when he came through on the way down, he saw cowboys herding cattle with motorcycles. One of our first stops of the morning was in Douglass, Wyoming. They claim to be the origin of the Jackalope. This part jackrabbit, part antelope is legend all over the west. We had fun taking pictures next to the town's 8 foot statue of a jackalope. We saw lots of other animals on the beautiful drive today as well. Pronghorn antelope camouflage into almost every hillside. We read that 75% of the world's pronghorn antelope live around Casper, Wyoming. We also saw herds of buffalo and lots of rabbits. Before arriving in Casper, we stopped at a neat natural stone bridge called Ayer's Natural Bridge. In Casper, we came across a really interesting restaurant called Sanford's Grub and Pub. There was a giant Bugs Bunny and Sylvester, old cars made into planters, dinosaurs and sharks. We chose to eat at Hardee's though because we didn't want to wait for 40 minutes. Wyoming is wide open spaces, beautiful rolling hills, snow capped mountains in the distances and amazing gorges and rock formations. We stopped at a place called Hell's Half Acre where there was a huge gorge with painted desert type rocks and Bryce Canyon like hoodoos. The sign said that there is evidence that the Indians used to drive herds of buffalo off the cliff in order to kill them. We then stopped in Thermopolis which is touted as having the world's largest mineral hot springs. (New Zealand begs to differ.) We drove to see the springs and a resident herd of buffalo. We made it into the old West town of Cody about 5pm. Cody is named after Buffalo Bill Cody and definitely has a wild west feeling. They have shoot outs in the street and a rodeo everyday during the summer. Cody is known as the rodeo capital of the world. We ate a dinner of bbq and settled in for the evening.

7-12-08

2008-07-12T20:27:00.001-07:00

Today we drove North through Taos, and into Colorado. We arrived at Taos early and walked around the square and looked at the shops that were open. We marveled at the Rio Grande Gorge and made plans to go whitewater rafting there one day. We stopped at a little shop on the way out of town which had lots of Mexican imports. It actually had more Talavera pottery than we saw in Mexico. We had lunch in Pueblo at one of Erik's favorite places, Texas Road House. In Colorado Springs we walked through the Garden of the Gods which is an amazing park that shows the upheaval of two tectonic plates. Red rocks dart out of the earth to form a spine like line for miles. We enjoyed a nice walk and of course I took lots of pictures. I wanted Erik to see the chapel at the Air Force Academy so we made a side trip there too. As we went through the guard gate, they checked the car and the trunk and asked for a can of diet Dr. Pepper to let us go in. She assured us that she was just kidding and wouldn't take the Dr. Pepper when we said sure. The sky cooperated giving me the opportunity to get some nice shots of the chapel shooting into the sky. One funny thing that is hard to see in the pictures is that there was a family carrying a canoe up the steps and into the chapel. We guessed that it was part of an object lesson for a sermon in the morning. We then headed north to Fort Collins, our home for the night.

7-11-08

2008-07-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

Spent the day exploring Santa Fe, mainly visiting old haunts. Always fun to look at the galleries. Ate some more good New Mexican food both at lunch and at dinner. This evening there was a major thunderstorm. Lots of lightning and thunder and then the bottom dropped out. We decided to go see a movie. We went to see Wall-E. We enjoyed the movie, but weren't as impressed as the reviews. This has been a nice, laid back day. Tomorrow we head to Colorado.

7-10-08

2008-07-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

We woke to blue skies in Santa Fe. We decided to head off to Bandelier National Monument for a hike. The drive there was absolutely beautiful. Beautiful canyons and mesas, lots of color. We got to the park early. It was a perfect day for hiking. It was about 70 degrees and sunny. We slathered on the sunscreen and headed out on the trail. There were several archaeological sites along the trail. The most interesting were the ones high up on the sides of the cliff walls. At some of the sites, there were kiva ladders you could climb to get up to the dwellings. We had fun climbing and exploring. We enjoyed a climb up a trail that offered some great views and we were able to watch lizards and chipmunks scurry. Oh, I almost forgot that we saw a fox near the visitor center. Was strange to see such a wild animal so near civilization. We decided to take one last trail, the Alcove Trail. After winding through a beautiful Ponderosa Pine forest, we came to a sign that warned those with health problems or fear of heights not to go any further. There was a series of ladders that climbed 140 feet to a cave dwelling and kiva. I climbed the first ladder with little problem. I felt a little wobbly, but was able to go on. The next ladder was about twice as high and just about did me in. With my arms and legs feeling like jello, I decided I shouldn't continue. I really wanted to, but my arms and legs just wouldn't let me. I sat down and waited as Erik continued up the last ladder to explore further. I ate peanuts and drank water thinking I just needed more energy. Everyone coming down, said that it was much harder to go down. This was not good news for me. I finally got up the courage to go down. It was harder. My legs were just shaking, making it really hard to make my way down the ladder. I don't know what the problem was, I am usually, not afraid of heights at all. I finally did make it down. The last ladder was no problem at all. It took me most of the afternoon, for my legs and arms not to feel like jello. We drove into the town of Los Alamos after passing "Do Not Enter, Explosives" signs along the way. Los Alamos is built on the top of several mesas with canyons separating parts of town. It was really weird to see such a modern city out in the middle of nowhere. We had to go through a check point to get into the city. The National Lab has projects and buildings all over town. I had a really messy green chili burrito for lunch. We then headed back into Santa Fe. I wasn't feeling very well, so we took a break at the hotel before heading out again. (I think that I might have had a bit of altitude sickness.) We then headed out of town to one of my favorite New Mexican restaurants. It is a hole in the wall hamburger and steak place out on the way to Las Vegas. Bobcat Bite is out in the middle of nowhere but is always standing room only. We sat at the counter in front of a window and watched the hummingbirds while eating green chile laced goodies. I had a yummy grilled cheese sandwich and Erik had a green chili cheese burger. Bobcat Bite is on the Bobcat Ranch and got its name because the bobcats used to come out of the hills to be fed on the porch of the ranch. I once actually saw a bobcat near this restaurant. On our way back into town, we went on a drive and watched a beautiful sunset as we looked at adobe houses gracing the hillside. Santa Fe, continues to be one of my favorite places to visit.

Rainy Wednesday July 9, 2008

2008-07-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

The theme for today was RAIN. We drove through flash floods in El Paso. We headed North into New Mexico in the rain. We had lunch in Alamogordo in the rain. We drove up to Cloudcroft and Ruidoso, in the rain. We drove North through the desert in the rain. Finaly, just outside of Santa Fe, we finally saw those famous, blue, Santa Fe skies. Don't really want to complain, because rain is really needed here and rain is really amazing in the desert. You can watch the storm clouds gathering for miles and miles. The smell of rain in the desert is so intoxicating. Driving in a downpour or trying to stroll down the shopping district of Ruidoso in the rain is not so fun. Oh well, we made it safely to our beloved Santa Fe and saw lots of new country on the new route that we took. We even scoped out a few ghost towns with great old buildings that would be fun to renovate. It is a bit cool and breezy in Santa Fe, but there is a beautiful sunset and the air smells so fresh. We are really looking forward to our time in this magical place. We were happy to see that our hotel was only a short walk to one of our favorite restaurants in Santa Fe. We enjoyed green chili tamales, chili rellenos and sopapillos at the Blue Corn Cafe. Now we are enjoying a beautiful sunset as we chill in our hotel room.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

2008-07-09T06:04:00.001-07:00

This morning we awoke to rain and were a little worried that we would not be able to go to Mexico as planned. But, it cleared up a bit so we headed out. We parked near the border and then took a taxi across the Rio Grande. Acuna is just over the border from Del Rio. Hidalgo Street is where it is all happening. Lots of little shops selling Mexican pottery, glass and more. About every other storefront was a dentist. Going over the border to go to the dentist is a very popular thing to do here. We enjoyed a nice meal at Crosby's. It is a famous old restaurant immortalized in songs by George Strait and ZZ Top. Erik had a $12 T-Bone steak. I had a taco platter. The rain really helped to cool things off which was welcome as we traveled today. After making our way back over to the US, we headed West again. The Big Bend region of Texas is really beautiful. Colorful mountains and canyons and the most amazing sky. We enjoyed strolling through the art colony of Marathon. What a neat little town in the middle of nowhere. We visited the Paisano hotel in Marfa. This hotel has hosted presidents and actors. It was the home to James Dean, and Elizabeth Taylor during the filming of Giant. Marfa was the site of two Oscar winning movies this year, "No Country for Old Men" and "There will be Blood." We had hoped to camp in Marfa and go out to see the mysterious Marfa Lights. But, it was pretty cloudy so we kept heading West. Near Valentine, we came upon an interesting piece of art. It was a storefront building that looked like a Prada Shoe Store. This was really in the middle of nowhere. The whole site was like a big cache, where people left their business cards anchored by a rock. As we headed down the road, we saw amazing sky, a drug blimp, a road runner and a tarantula! We made it to Van Horn and decided to call it a night. We went to eat at a colorful restaurant called Chuy's that boasted of being in the John Madden Hall of Fame. (Not sure what that meant, but the food was good and they even had wireless. ) Besides the many sports related pennants hanging from the walls, there was a mural on the wall of Chuy's being blessed by Jesus. So, I guess that Chuy's was not only blessed by John Madden, but also by Jesus Christ. After we finished eating, we found a hotel for the evening. I've been trying to catch up on my writing since I was wiped out last night.

Monday 7-7-08

2008-07-09T06:02:00.000-07:00

Today we sadly said our "see you laters" to my parents in Nac and headed West. We followed the historic Old San Antonio Road from Nac all the way to San Antonio with a few detours along the way. The drive was very pretty as we made our way through the piney woods and the hill country. We stopped in Dime Box, to see a dime in a box? We continued on and went to Salt Lick Bar Be Que which is a great old restaurant out in Driftwood, Tx. Their motto is "You can smell our pitts from miles around." This was a return trip for us. We really enjoyed our bbq and the peach cobbler for dessert. We decided to go into San Antonio to get a glimpse of the World's Largest Cowboy boots. About that time, the bottom dropped out and it started pouring. We found the giant boots in front of the Sax 5th Ave at the North Star Mall. We pulled into the parking garage and took a little nap while waiting out the storm. After we got our shot, we headed West again. Again, the bottom dropped out and it poured. You could hardly see the road. Eventually, it cleared up a bit and we were able to see the beautiful country as we headed for Del Rio. Castroville and Bracketville both looked really interesting. After arriving in Del Rio, we set off to find some authentic Del Rio food. We came across Memos, an old restaurant that looks out over the lazy blue spring fed river that winds its way through town. We enjoyed a nice dinner and then took a walk along the river and through a neighborhood with some beautiful old homes. We decided to take a different way back and were glad that we had our GPS receiver with us because the roads didn't quite match up. Tired after a pleasant but long day of travel, we settled into our hotel for the evening.

4th of July Weekend in Nac

2008-07-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

4th of July Weekend in the Oldest Town in Texas

This weekend we have just taken it easy. We left Austin on Thursday and took a scenic drive to Nacogdoches, stopping along the way at interesting sights like the world's largest Longhorn and the world's largest birdhouse. We arrived in Nac, just a little before my sister and her family arrived from Houston. The rest of the long weekend has been spent just enjoying family. On Friday, we had a lot of fun going geocaching. This is a family hobby that I introduced about 4 years ago. It has really taken off with Juli and her family. We not only found caches, but we also checked on caches we had hidden. We watched a wimpy fireworks display from the mall parking lot. On Saturday, we went on a nice tour of my alumni Stephen F. Austin State University. My nephew Chase is thinking about going to school here next year. We would love for him to be the 3rd generation of our family to go to this great university. One fun thing that happened was that I showed my nephew how to text Google to find information. Luckily he has an unlimited texting plan because he starting texting questions to Google in great numbers. If you have a text plan on your phone, you can call the numbers that represent GOOGLE and then ask a question like define: metamaniacal or weather:98274. Chase immediately saw great uses for this as a learning tool. On Sunday, we enjoyed a nice church service and lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant and then just had a lazy afternoon. This was great since, I have come down with a really nasty cold. No fun! Hopefully, I will be getting better soon.

Bats!

2008-07-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

After leaving NECC, my husband and I headed out on our 3 week road trip back home. Our first stop was a beautiful spot on the Guadelupe River in Historic Gruene. We had a great Texas meal in beautiful old gristmill. We then headed for the great city of Austin. (Many call it the Seattle of the South.) We are staying right by the Congress Street Bridge. The cool thing about this is that the world's largest urban bat colony lives under this bridge. People gather at dusk each night to watch the Mexican Tailless bats leave their roost in swarms to go feast on insects. Erik and I got a great view of the bats from the bridge as they took off from the bridge. Very cool to see the swarms of bats against the sky in the distances as they made their way to their feeding grounds. If you ever get to Austin, make sure to check out the bats. Interesting Bat Facts

The bats provide a valuable service to the Austin community by consuming between 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of insects nightly!
Bats can live to be 30 years old.
Mother bats give birth to a single pup each year. The pups birth weight is nearly 1/3 that of its mother.
Bats are mammals and nurse the pups from mammary glands. Each female recognizes her pups voice and smell and will nurse only her pup.
During migrations to Mexico and back, bats may reach an altitude of 10,000 feet and velocities of 60 miles per hour.

Shania and Friends in San Antonio

2008-07-02T15:51:00.000-07:00

And We're Off

2008-06-28T18:33:00.000-07:00

POI on Garmin: We are off on another great adventure. This one is off to a bit of an odd start. I am on a plane headed to San Antonio, and Erik is in a car headed to San Antonio. I am pretty sure that I will beat him by a few days at least, but I am really jealous of the fact that he is roadtripping without me. That is something that Erik and I do very well together. We are the king and queen of roadtrips and have had some amazing adventures. But, with me flying to my conference, we will be able to squeeze in a few more days of travel and Erik will not have to be stuck in San Antonio while I am in sessions. Not that it is a bad place to be stuck for a few days. Planning and packing for our trips is always part of the adventure. Erik ordered new travel books for our journey from Amazon. They had not arrived when we left even though they were shipped from just 70 miles away, 5 days ago. Perhaps they are coming by bike courier. Erik's mom, Doreen, will mail them as soon as they do arrive. Doreen, is staying at the house for a self proclaimed mini vacation, that, to our benefit, includes lots of walks for Roswell and her favorite hobby, weeding and watering the gardens. My booking of a hotel in San Antonio was also quite an adventure when Priceline decided to CANCEL my prepaid hotel room and refund my money after my room had been booked for 4 months. Erik has been busy updating our Garmin Nuvi GPS system for the trip. Not only do we have new maps, but he also downloaded points of interests or POIs including, odd attractions, famous people who died nearby and free wifi locations. That and the surprise of having satellite radio in the rental car will keep him well entertained until we meet up in San Antonio. Erik set the Nuvi this morning to the fastest route to San Antonio. I think that he will be going through the Oregon, Idaho and possibly into Salt Lake City for the evening. We will see how far he is able to get with out me needing to stop for breaks along the way. I've instructed him to take photos along the way. Hopefully he will take the time to do that. I fly through Houston and get into San Antonio about 10 pm tonight. I have an early morning on Sunday and a long day including a Discover Educator's Network event and presenting my poster session. Then I will be able to breath a bit and enjoy the rest of the conference.

Butterfield at Google

2008-06-26T16:07:00.000-07:00

Thought that my class might appreciate this photo. Found this Deborah Butterfield Horse Sculpture at Google. We saw a Deborah Butterfield exhibit at the Museum of Northwest Art last year. The sunset is a result of the California fires. Very smokey.

June 25, 2008 Life at Google

2008-06-26T08:12:00.001-07:00

Sitting in the San Jose Airport with FREE WIRELESS! Haven't figured out why that just isn't a given in all hotels and airports now. Glad that it is here though because I have time to share some of my adventures at Google. Yesterday was jammed packed with meeting new people, experiencing great things, dreaming big dreams and learning amazing things. I arrived at Google Headquarters about 8am. I was greeted by many friendly and excited educators. Many, I already had a connection with through the contacts we had either on the wiki created before the academy or through DEN or Twitter. It was neat to put faces to names of people who I follow online in my professional learning network. We started with breakfast and jumped right in. The rest of the day moved at an amazingly fast pace. It will take me months to process all that was presented at the academy. I think that the best way to break this up is by sharing my experiences with being at the Google Headquarters and then share some of what I learned and will be experimenting with in the near future.

Google, in many ways, reminded me of a college campus, a great mix of fun, learning and food. It was explained that Googlers are even graded quarterly. They start off the quarter by writing goals or objectives for themselves, things that they want to learn, try or do. At the end of the quarter, they are graded on how well they met their goals. The Google campus is very focused on providing an atmosphere where people can be comfortable and creative. Shuttles and transportation are provided. There are courtesy bikes all around the campus. You can hop on a bike at one location, take it to another, and then leave it there for someone else to use. They have a rule that there is no place on campus more than 150 feet from food! And the food is plentiful and free! All around the campus, they have micro kitchens with a variety of healthy and not so healthy snacks. You just grab what you want whenever you feel the need. They also have amazing cafeterias scattered throughout the campus with every type of food you can imagine. There are community gardens. Solar paneled car ports where Prius drivers can plug in their car for the day. They have a laundry for any employ who wants their laundry done while they are at work. There are lap pools, volleyball courts, hiking trails and other ways to get outside and enjoy. Dogs get to come to work! All over campus, there were happy Google Dogs enjoying a run around campus while their owners took a quick break. They even had massage facilities and the toilet seats are heated! Beyond all of these great creature comforts, there were lots of efforts to be earth friendly as well. They used compostable cups and silverware. No water bottles. They provided refillable water pitchers instead. They have a huge amount of solar panels that run over 1/3 of the campus. Google is all about encouraging creativity and innovation. It is neat to see how that model works. Obviously, Google is very successful. They believe that great is not good enough. They believe that you can make money without doing evil. I think of the implications in school. When students basic needs are met, they are more able to concentrate on learning. Set the bar high. No hand holding. Students should be encouraged to figure things out for themselves. Lots more true learning and innovation comes from having to figure things out for yourself. Work in teams. Have fun learning and growing. More on all the tools I learned about later. Time to board the plane.

Headed to Google!

2008-06-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

Shania and I are off on our first adventure of the summer. We are at SEATAC Airport waiting to board a plane for San Jose, California. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I will be making my way to Mountain View, California and the Google Headquarters. They call it the Googleplex. I will be attending the Google Teachers Academy to learn about all things Google and all the neat ways that you can use Google products in education. There are lots of really neat things about this trip. One being that I will get to tour the Google Headquarters. Google is a really neat company and they are well known for the creative ways they do business and the neat things they do to inspire creativity among their employs. It will be neat to see all of that in action. Google actually pays its employs to play! They want their employs to be experimenting with fun and innovative ideas, so they build that into their work week. Another really neat thing about this trip is that I will be connecting with 50 other very innovative and creative teachers from around the world, not only for the day, but we will then be collaborating on fun projects throughout the year. I haven't seen a complete list of the teachers attending, but I know that there are teachers coming from New Zealand, Korea, Australia, the Phillipines and all over the US. I am really looking forward to the opportunity to connect with these teachers. There were over 1000 teachers who applied. Each teacher had to send a video and an application showing how technology can motivate learning. I have to admit that this was a really last minute decision for me to apply. I put together the video and the application in about an hour on the last day. Fortunately, I had lots of video to work with from the last 2 years to edit into a 1 minute video about motivation. (Thanks to my incredible students.) I feel really fortunate to have this opportunity and I am looking forward to sharing the cool things I learn and see while I am there. I did have to sign a nondisclosure agreement promising I wouldn't reveal any company secrets. ( I won't be able to take photos or video.) But I am sure that I will come away with lots that I can share. That is why they invited me. I am even being "googley" as I write in the airport. There is no wireless available here so I am offline, but, thanks to GoogleGears, I can work on my GoogleDocs, GoogleCalendar and read my GoogleReader without being connected. Pretty cool. This is kind of a whirl wind trip. I am flying out Tuesday evening. Will be at Google all day (8:30-7:30) tomorrow and then I fly back first thing on Thursday morning. Have to get back so that I can leave on our next adventure.

Blogging ideas:

Boise Roadtrip part 2

2007-08-19T21:26:00.001-07:00

After eating yummy Texas Roadhouse and shopping at Sierra Trading Post we took a little time to look around Boise. Boise is a nice little capital city. It has a great downtown area and a wonderful green space near the river. It looks like a place we would really enjoy living, but, we haven’t seen what it is like in the winter. Might be a whole other story. Erik had the great idea of heading North up the Payette Valley along Hell’s Canyon up to Lewiston, Idaho. This was an all day adventure. We traveled along curvey roads along a raging river. At one point, we encountered firefighters in helicopters fighting a wildfire. It was really hard to breath at this point with the smoke filling the air and the flames licking the earth. We were only miles from Hell’s Canyon to the West, but there was no easy access from the road we were on. But our drive was really beautiful. In one town, we saw a very cool Bed and Breakfast called the DogBarkPark Inn. It is a giant beagle that is a bed and breakfast. Very fun. Toward the end of the drive, we came to farm land. Wheat for as far as you could see. This was really a beautiful sight which we would see much more of on the next day. We were a little disappointed with our hotel in Lewiston, ID. It was pretty much an armpit. We would have much rather stayed in the beagle than in this hotel which was sandwiched between a truck stop and a pulp mill plant. The picture of the pulp mill is from our hotel window. But we survived the night without any trouble and headed out through the Palouse toward home the next day. The Palouse is a region that neither Erik or I had explored. This is an amazing landscape of golden rolling hills of wheat dotted with farm implements and farm houses. We traveled through Moscow, Idaho, home of University of Idaho and through Pullman, Wa. Home of Washington State. It was great to put “faces” to these names. Unfortunately for picture taking, it rained all day so I didn’t get many pictures. We enjoyed a bar-b-que dinner in Ellensburg and took a look at a really funky house and then enjoyed listening to the Mariners beat the Whitesocks as we traveled the rest of the way home.

Road Trip to Boise

2007-08-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

Erik and I were planning one last weekend away before school starts. We were planning to go to our property on the Olympic Peninsula. But, it looked like it was going to rain all weekend, so we took a look at the weather map, found some sun and headed East. We spent Thursday night along the Columbia in Kennewick. We enjoyed geocaching in Columbia Park. We passed through some huge brush fires going by Hanford. There were fire trucks coming from everywhere. The sunset was pretty amazing with the smoke in the air. We enjoyed the art of the different bridges in the area. The Columbia is a mighty river. This morning we headed to Walla Walla. Erik had never been to Walla Walla and wanted to see a part of the state he had yet to see. We stopped at the Whitman Mission National Historic site. I find this place really interesting because I have taught the book Stout Hearted Seven several years now. This is where the true and tragic story took place. We climbed up to the top of the hill where the monument is and had a great view of the Walla Walla Valley. We were able to find a few geocaches in the area. We then headed to Whitman College in Walla Walla. This is a beautiful little college. One of my students will be starting here in the fall. It is a pretty prestigious college so I am very proud of her for the hard work it took for her to get there. We found a geocache near a duck pond. But for me, the real find was a Deborah Butterfield horse. There was a lot of art on the campus, but it was really neat to see this giant horse that looked like it had been crafted out of drift wood. What was really cool is that unlike at the museum, I was able to touch this horse. I could see that it was really made out of bronze. It was also much bigger than the ones at the museum. We then headed off through Oregon. This is the route the pioneers on the Oregon Trail took over the Blue Mountains. (Only we were headed in the opposite direction.) It really is a beautiful but difficult landscape. We drove and we drove and we drove some more. I know that this sounds really crazy, but one of the reasons we chose to go to Boise was that they have a Texas Roadhouse. This is a restaurant that both Erik and I really like, Erik more so than I and at 500 miles away, it is the closest one to our house. Another place Erik really likes to go is Sierra Trading Post. They also have one of those in Boise now. So, mainly for the beautiful scenery and sunshine, but also with the promise of good food and shopping, we headed to Boise. We got to Texas Roadhouse and had to wait almost an hour to get a table. It was really hopping. Erik was really pleased with this because he even owns stock in the company. :) We enjoyed a great meal and left very full. Was hoping to share some photos tonight but will have to wait til I get home because I don't have the cable to download the photos. Oh well. Not sure what we will do tomorrow, but it is back to work on Monday so eventually we have to head back to cloudy Western Washington.

San Francisco Tour 8-5-07

2007-08-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

I spent the day in San Francisco before my Discovery Educator Institute begins tomorrow. Wanted to make sure that I took full advantage of my day so I got an early start. It was a typical, gray summer day in San Francisco. San Francisco actually has much better weather at other times of the year. I am staying near the airport so I took a shuttle from the hotel to the airport to catch the BART to downtown. The BART is the rapid transit system in San Francisco. It is so great to be able to hop on a train and end up right in the middle of all the activity downtown. I got off at Powell street and started my day with a new book. I went to Borders and got a new San Francisco Lonely Planet Guide. I then had breakfast while researching my day. I made a list of places I would like to see. I then purchased an all day pass on the MUNI. This is for buses, trolleys and cable cars. I took a bus up into Chinatown and then walked through alleys to a fortune cookie factory. I learned that fortune cookies were actually invented here in San Francisco. Each cookie is folded by hand. I then caught the cable car down to Fisherman's Wharf. I held on for dear life as we careened up and down streets. We passed through Chinatown and Russian Hill. We saw Lombard St., the crookedest street in the world. At the wharf, I viewed old boats and I could see Alcatraz. I then walked to Ghiradelli Square. This is now a shopping area, but it used to be a chocolate factory. Yum. From there I took a bus to the Civic Center area where I enjoyed a wonderful lunch of Indian food. Back on the bus to Alamo Square so I could take pictures of the old Victorian Row Houses that they call "The Painted Ladies". Back on a bus to Golden Gate Park. (By the way, I opted not to go to the Golden Gate Bridge because it was too foggy to see it. ) At Golden Gate Park, I walked through the botanic gardens and through the beautiful old Conservatory of Flowers. They had a special exhibit for carnivorous plants. My camera battery was getting low. Not good since the day wasn't over and I was surrounded by flowers. I pulled myself away and took a bus to a transfer point. Instead of waiting for the next bus, I decided to walk. (Since it was down hill...:) I walked to the famous area called Haight and Ashbury. This was an area where the hippies hung out in the 60's. It is now a neat and funky street with lots of interesting shops and people. I was able to coax a few more pictures out of my camera before it gave up. I then planned on taking a bus to the Mission district. Again, I started walking since it was down hill. Walked all the way down Haight. Saw some really neat houses and shops. Got Mission Dolores. This is the oldest building in San Francisco. It was a church built by Spanish missionaries. The Mission area is a really neat area of town. This is a mainly Latino area of town, but it attracts immigrants from all over the world. So there is lots of neat mural art and wonderful ethnic restaurants. Had to pass up an Ethiopian restaurant. Haven't had Ethiopian food since I left Africa. Also had to pass up a world famous Mission burrito from a taqueria because I was still full from lunch. Very tired, I hopped back on the BART and headed back to my hotel. It was a very full and fun day. Now I am playing with my photos and getting stuff ready for a week full of learning at Berkeley.

Cookie in San Francisco 4-6-07

2007-04-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

Today was a fun day in San Francisco. We got up and had breakfast and then headed for the BART station. This in the Bay Area Rapid Transit System and it takes you all over the area. We got off downtown and then took a cable car down to Fisherman's Wharf. We walked around the shops and took pictures of the city, the foggy Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. We then took a trolley up the Embarcadero where we went to a market and then headed up Nob Hill on another Cable Car. We saw are really beautiful alter piece made my people in a village in South Africa that has been ravaged by AIDS in Grace Cathedral. We then walked down, down, down a very steep hill to China Town. We walked along the shops taking in the sites, sounds and smells of that part of the city. We then found an Indian Restaurant in Union Square. Erik gave their Chicken Korma an 8. Which is pretty good. We then joined the masses and took a train to ATT Field for a ball game. The field is really neat, right on the water. People wait in boats to catch out of the park balls. We rooted for Mike Cameron, Omar Vizquel and Randy Winn even though they played for different teams. It got pretty chilly as we watched the fog roll in at night. The Giant's won a close one that wasn't decided until the ninth inning. Then it was back on the train to the hotel. A very full and fun day of being a tourist.

Cookie and Elvis 4-4-07

2007-04-04T21:47:00.000-07:00

No pictures today. Lots to see, but we didn't stop much along the way. This morning we went and found one more cache in LaQuinta near where we were staying and then headed to San Francisco. Drove back by all of the windmills again. Near Pasadena I saw an old red convertible with a license plate that said ELVES. Close enough to Elvis. As we drove by, I noticed fuzzy dice on the mirror. I took a closer look at it WAS Elvis!! Or at least an Elvis impersonator in full garb. Kind of funny. The next thing we saw on the road was not funny at all. We heard this screech and this car came flying by us weaving through traffic. We had to put on the brakes to give it room to fly by. It continued on flying through traffic at a very high rate of speed. Then another car flew by on the shoulder. This was in pretty thick LA traffic. I told Erik to watch out because they were sure to wipe out in front of us and we were going to have to put the brakes on fast. Sure enough, the first car that flew by us hit another car, slammed into the median and then flew across 4 lanes of traffic and off the freeway down to the service road below. We couldn't see where it landed, but I doubt very seriously the driver lived. The other driver was off to the side of the road with a mangled car. He looked like he was ok. Then there was the poor innocent guy stuck in the middle of the highway because he had been sideswiped by the suicidal drivers. YIPES! We were really shook up after that. I feel very blessed to be alive. Luckily, the rest of the trip was less eventful. We drove through lots of rolling hills. We ate at another Texas Roadhouse and then headed across a long bridge over the bay to our hotel. Our hotel is right on the bay and there is a nice walking trail. We walked about 4 miles looking for caches. It got dark and we were only able to find one. Tomorrow we will explore San Francisco and go to a Giants game. Tomorrow will be a good picture day.

Cookie at Joshua Tree 4-3-07

2007-04-03T21:38:00.000-07:00

Another very full day. This morning we got up and met Erik’s dad and stepmom and and hopped on a hummer for a tour of Joshua Tree National Park. Wow! That Hummer can really go anywhere. It went over rocks and boulders. It was very bumpy, but pretty amazing. Some of the cool things that we saw were the San Andreas Fault line. We learned that there is this huge underground lake here and it comes to the surface at the fault. There was this really cool oasis called 1000 Palms where the lake came to the surface. We had to go up to 3, 300 feet to see the Joshua Trees. It was really neat to see them in bloom. After we got back from our very bumpy trip. Erik and I decided to take the more conventional route and drive through the park on the paved roads. We stopped for virtual caches and for Erik to climb on rocks and me to take pictures. The park was really interesting. We got back to Erik’s dad just in time for dinner. We enjoyed a good meal and then headed back to the hotel, dusty, windblown and tired. Geocaching was interesting in the park. You can’t hide real caches so you find coordinates and then answer questions. I learned a lot about the desert this way.

Cookie at the Living Desert: 4-2-07

2007-04-02T21:49:00.000-07:00

This morning we didn't have a long drive ahead of us so we had a nice breakfast and then went for a walk and did some geocaching. We were able to find 4 caches close to our hotel. A few of the finds were a little creepy because there were black widow webs near by. We then met up with Erik's dad and went to the Living Desert which is both a zoo and a botanical garden. They had a new baby giraffe. That was neat to see. Most of the animals were hiding because the heat was too much. I felt like hiding under a rock from the sun too. Actually, the sun felt good. It was a nice dose of Vitamin D. After getting really hot out in the desert, we went back to Erik's dad's place. They live on a golf course. They took us out in the golf cart to see the area. In the evening we went to a Brazillian BBQ. Way too much food. Tomorrow we have an early morning so I should be getting to bed.

2007-04-01T22:21:00.000-07:00

Cookie's trip from Sacramento to Palm Desert 4-1-07

2007-04-01T22:08:00.000-07:00

Another day with LOTS of driving. We did take time this morning to find a cache in a park near the hotel we were staying in. The cache was cool. It was in a 5 gallon paint bucket disguised as a stump. I think that it was the biggest cache I have found. We then headed South. It was funny, we stopped at a rest stop and it seemed that everyone was there. There was a line at the bathroom and we were discussing why there were so many people traveling. Come to find out, the 3 ladies I was talking with were all also teachers on Spring Break from different places. We drove past lots of farm land today. Orchards as far as the eye could see. We saw almond, pistachio and peach orchards. We skirted around Los Angeles. Wow, was it ever smoggy there. I was really glad when the air began to clear as we got closer to Palm Desert. When we got to Palm Springs there were hundreds of giant wind mills along the hills generating wind power. I have seen these many times before, but never so many in one place. We got here just in time to have a nice dinner with Erik's dad and his new wife and a meet a few of her kids. They live right on the golf course. There are golf courses EVERYWHERE here! It was a full moon and the weather was just perfect. Tomorrow we actually get to do something besides drive. Woo Hoo!!

Cookie on the Road April 1, 2007

2007-03-31T21:59:00.000-07:00

Today was all about driving. We left Mount Vernon this morning at 6:20 and drove and drove and drove. Actually, Erik drove and I navigated, which wasn't very hard because we basically just drove South on I5. As I said, we didn't take a lot of time for sightseeing, but we did see some interesting things from the road. We started off in gray rainy Northwest weather. In Oregon we saw lots of sheep. We wondered if the wool is used at the Pendleton Mills. We passed 3 state capitol buildings. Can you name the 3 capitol buildings we would have passed? One of the most amazing things we saw was Mount Shasta. It just looks so mighty and close up as you drive through Weed, California. California lived up to its reputation and greeted us with much longed after sunshine. It got up to 80 degrees today. We made it all the way to Sacramento. Erik loves to eat at Texas Roadhouse and the closest one to Mount Vernon is about 500 miles away so he had done his research and knew just where the Texas Roadhouse was in Sacramento. We enjoyed a great meal and then headed to the hotel for a good night's sleep. Another long day of driving tomorrow. It is a long way to Southern California from Mount Vernon. Today we drove 820 miles!!!!

Home!

2006-07-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

We drove through beautiful Washington today and arrived home in the afternoon. After traveling about 6500 miles, and having a great time, I feel very blessed to live in such a beautiful place. We drove up from Richland with both Mount St. Helens and Mt. Rainier in the distance. The Yakima valley was bursting with abundance. The trees and mountains looked so big as we drove over the pass. Was starting to forget what green trees looked like. We arrived home to find Roswell snoozing in the house next to Erik's mom. Both seemed to have survived well. I plan on adding a few things to the blog in the next few weeks like a photo album and some links to the attractions we visited. I will also go back through and fix all my typos that happened as I rushed to log in the blog each day. I would appreciate hearing from you to see who actually kept up with the blog while we were away.

July 14 Salt Lake to Richland

2006-07-14T20:46:00.000-07:00

July 14 Salt Lake to Richland

We woke up to a very smoggy Salt Lake City this morning. They issued a red alert because of the smog encouraging people to stay inside if they can. Ick. Our first stop was the state capitol. We drove through the downtown area and up to Capitol Hill. There are lots of interesting buildings and pieces of art in the city. Salt Lake City is the headquarters of the Mormon church. This is where their main temple is located. They have a big conference center and a temple square. Up at the capitol we found out that it was under major construction. The old capitol building is completely gutted and there is scaffolding all around the outside. The work of the state is being done in buildings around the capitol. We then drove North, out of the smog and by the Great Salt Lake. This is a large inland sea. It has a lot of salt in the water like the ocean and unlike other inland lakes. Entering Idaho we were following the Oregon Trail. We passed several historical sites where the pioneers stopped along the way. We followed the Snake River for a little while. In Boise, we made one last capitol stop. This one was not under construction. It looked similar to many others on the outside with a big dome. But inside, it was very white. They had used marble, white paint and another marble like material throughout. The idea was to increase the amount of light in the building. It looked very palatial. Now we are headed toward the Blue Mountains. This was one of the most treacherous parts of the Oregon Trail because it was either winter or almost winter when they had to pass over the mountains. Many camped on the other side until Spring so that they wouldn'tÂt get caught in the mountains in the winter.

July 13 Denver to Salt Lake City

2006-07-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

July 13 Denver to Salt Lake City
Today we have spent most of the day driving across the vast state of Wyoming. We fought through Denver traffic and headed north. Cheyenne. Wyoming was about and hour and half away. That was our first stop. Erik always likes to make a stop at Sierra Trading Post if we are any where near. We receive their catalogs and Erik likes their deals. We spent about 2 hours looking around the store. We then went to visit the capitol building. WyomingÂs was the smallest we have seen so far. They had a statue of a woman out front. Wyoming was the first state to give women the right to vote. Actually, yesterday in Denver they said that Colorado was the first because Wyoming was not a state yet when they gave women the right to vote. Either way, women had the right to vote first in Wyoming. They also had a big statue of an American Bison as well as a stuffed bison inside the building. Just as we were entering the state you could see a giant bison up on the hill. Wyoming has a bison on their flag. We ate lunch and then headed West. We have seen a lot of oil wells and antelope but very few towns or people. We are now in the Western part of the state. There are a lot of silica mines in this area. Silica is used to make glass. We will head a bit south into Salt Lake City to spend the night. We have had a great trip but as we get closer to home, the road seems to get longer and the time seems to slow down. I am really ready to see my giant mutt and check out my garden. As we were driving, we saw a sign for Fort Bridger in Wyoming. What caught my eye was that it said ÂGravesite of Thornburgh the DogÂ. Fort Bridger was a trading hub that was used by people on the Oregon Trail, tMormonman Trail and the Pony Express among others. Thornburgh was named after a wagon master who was killed in a raid. He lived at the fort and was loved by many. He died when he was kicked by a mule. His master had a gravestone made for him. We have seen lots of giant windmills today. This is a great place for wind power. Coming into Salt Lake we passed several of the ski areas used in the 2002 Winter Olympics. This is a beautiful green area after a day with no trees. Salt Lake City sits down in a bowl surrounded by mountains on all sides. You curve down, down , down and then there is big city around the corner.

July 12 Denver

2006-07-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

July 12 Denver

Today we spent the day in downtown Denver. There is a lot of really unique art and architecture downtown. Alex would love all of the neat shaped buildings. The new art museum reminds me of a cross between the EMP and the Seattle Library. The building was designed by the architect of the new World Trade Center in New York City.We first went to the US Mint and got on the standby list for a tour later that afternoon. We then walked to the capitol building and went on a tour. This building looks a lot like the Texas and Arkansas capitol buildings. But even though they look similar, each is a showcase of materials and values from the state. We enjoyed the tour and then headed to the 16th Street Mall. The Mall is a mile of road that is closed to traffic. There are restaurants and stores along the way. From there we walked through LODO (Lower downtown) to CoorÂs Field where the Rockies play. We would have liked to have gone to a game, but because of the All Star game, they weren't playing. Then we walked to the mint in hopes of going on a tour. We ended up getting into the tour. We got to see how they make pennies, quarters, nickels, dimes and the dollar coins. Unfortunately, couldn't take any photos because of security. It was really HOT today and we walked and walked and walked. We were able to get some of the new Colorado quarters a few weeks before they are out to the banks. Tomorrow it is off to Salt Lake City. (Another capital)

July 11 Santa Fe to Denver

2006-07-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

July 11 Santa Fe to Denver

We started our morning with breakfast burritos on the plaza. We walked around the square waiting for the rainbow man to open because we were in the market for a frog planter. After getting the frog planter, we headed North to Taos. We made a stop at the Iglesia de San Francisco in Ranchos de Taos. This is the old adobe church made famous because of Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings. We walked around the plaza in Taos. We were a little surprised at the price mark ups on some things. Talevera planters we had seen in Palomas for $30 were selling for $250!! Needless to say, we didn’t buy any here. I did take lots of photos though. I talked Erik into going to the Taos Pueblo. This is a multi story adobe pueblo often seen in pictures and the iconic pueblo scene. I again, took lots of pictures, but I was a little disappointed. The last time I came, there were a lot more people out making bread, weaving etc. I got some good pictures of the buildings and saw some really cute puppies. We then headed North to Colorado. Not too far from the Colorado boarder we came to the town of San Luis. This is the oldest town in Colorado. Up on the hill was a beautiful church. It looked like there was only a steep walking path up to the church but I felt sure that there must be a road. We used the GPS and found a way to the top. It was really a beautiful surprise. Neither of us knew that this was going to be there. I am anxious to look this place up and learn more about it. We continued north to Denver. We are now settled in to our hotel. Erik is watching the All Star game. I was afraid that we wouldn’t have access here, but they do in the lobby.

July 10 Santa Fe

2006-07-10T17:28:00.000-07:00

July 10 Santa Fe

Today we have enjoyed our day in Santa Fe. Santa Fe is a really neat town that is trying to hold on to the unique culture of New Mexico. They have a city ordinance that requires all buildings to be built in the adobe style. So, here you see adobe banks, McDonalds, Wal-Marts etc. We started off our day by visiting High Country Gardens. This garden specializes in xeric plants. (Plants that don’t need a lot of water). I got some ideas for my own garden. We then went to one of our favorite shopping spots, Jackalope. This is a huge place that is like a market place with vendors from several countries. They have lots of neat folk art. I took lots of pictures of the crafts. We then headed to the old historic part of town. We went to a great restaurant and had some yummy posole and enchiladas. Erik had a green chili burger. We visited the Georgia O'Keefe Museum. She is a famous artist who lived and painted in this area. I enjoy her work because she paints the way I like to take pictures. She does close ups of flowers and frames her pictures in different ways. The most interesting thing was probably the documentary that they had abou her life. We wandered around town a bit and then headed for the state capitol. This is our 3rd state capitol of the trip. This building is very different from the others. It looks very modern. It is a round building and like the rest of Santa Fe, it is adobe. The capitol had lots of beautiful Southwestern art. We saw the governor’s office and the senate and the legislator. This is monsoon season in the high desert. Last night there was a really amazing lightning storm. We are off to Denver tomorrow. We are going to take the high road to Taos and visit several pueblos along the way. I am not sure that we will have Internet access while we are in Denver for 2 nights. So…. If not, know that I will post as soon as I do have Internet.

July 9 Las Cruces to Santa Fe

2006-07-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

July 9 Las Cruces to Santa Fe

Erik and I really love New Mexico. There are lots of things I like about the area. I love the food. Green Chilis….. yum!!! I love the blue sky. I love watching storms come across the buttes and mesas. I love the smell of the rain in the desert. I love the way the sun diffuses the colors making for incredible photographs. I love the Native American and Spanish cultures. So… today we are wandering through parts of New Mexico that I have not explored before. (Erik has done some of it, but there are also lots of new things for him as well. ) We started off in Las Cruces this morning. Las Cruces, which means the crosses, was named that because there was an Indian raid of a caravan in the area and all the graves were marked with crosses. So when others would come that way, they would identify the place in that way. We went to the old part of town called Mesilla. This was the territory for Billy the Kid and his buds. We were there early so we just walked around the square and then headed out. We drove North on I 25. We stopped in Truth or Consequences for lunch. Truth or Consequences grows lots of chili peppers so we were hoping for a spicy lunch. It was actually pretty bland. Oh well. When Erik lived in El Paso, his friend would take him camping and fishing at Elephant Butte which was nearby so we went out to take a look. It is still a very beautiful place, but Erik was shocked at how low the water level had dropped. He was guessing at least 50 feet. We went to the visitor’s center and they told us that the lake fluctuates. They said that because of water rights with Texas, they have to give Texas 2 feet of the lakes water each week. That is a huge amount considering the size of the lake. After Elephant Butte, we headed way out in the middle of nowhere, 50 miles West of Socorro to see The Very Large Array. This is a series of 27 giant radio telescopes placed in a y shape spread out in 13 miles in each direction. Each radio telescope has a dish that is about the size of a baseball field. This is a research station where they study the universe by searching for radio signals. They can actually tell more by using radio waves than optical waves. It was cool to see these giant dishes spread out across the New Mexican wilderness. This is where they filmed the movie “Contact” where Jodi Foster was listening for extraterrestrial life. There was an article about this and it explained that the research center is funded by the US government and that the government does not believe in extraterrestrial life so that is not what the telescopes are used for. The reason there are so many is because they can hone in on the signal better if there are several dishes catching it at once. The science of it all was pretty interesting. I didn’t really have a good idea of what we were going to see or what radio telescopes do before we went, now I have a better idea. One thing that I really enjoyed that had nothing to do with telescopes is that there were jack rabbits and pronghorn antelope all over the place. I guess that they do have one thing in common, both the telescopes and the rabbits had very big ears. We are always seeing funny signs along our way. Yesterday we saw a Sonic Drive In Sign. It said Sonic is closed. Then there was just a pile of rubble. It was pretty obvious that it was closed. Today we saw the Happy Belly Deli and a motel sign that said “Well behaved pets and people are welcome here.”

July 8 El Paso, Columbus, NM, Paloma, Mexico, White Sands, Las Cruces

2006-07-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

July 8 El Paso, Las Palomas, Mexico, Columbus, NM, White Sands, Las Cruces

Today we have had all sorts of adventures. We left El Paso this morning and headed West into frontier land. We drove along a brand new road right on the New Mexico, Mexico border. The road was neat because all around it was just pristine desert. No signs or buildings anywhere. As we drove, we saw jack rabbits, tarantulas, vultures, and millipedes. As I said, we were within sight of the Mexican boarder so the boarder patrol was out in full force. At one point, this border patrol helicopter swooped down and followed the road just ahead of us. It is hard to imagine that so many people come to the US across this desolate desert. We got to the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. This is where Pancho Villa invaded the US in 1916. They have a state park with some interesting facts about the raid. He was quite a character. There was a Border Patrol agent there giving a talk about issues at the border. It was interesting to hear some of his stories. We then headed South to Palomas, Mexico. Palomas is a sleepy little Mexican village right on the border . A very different experience than Juarez would have been. We walked around town and ate the Pancho Villa café. We took some pictures and did a little shopping in The Pink Store. Erik and I really love Mexican arts and crafts so this was fun. We had no problem getting across the border. They just asked us what country we were from and didn’t even ask for identification. We then headed toward Demming. We went to Rock Hound State Park. Erik is more of a rock hound than me, but I enjoyed walking around looking at plants and animals in the desert. Erik found a few cool rocks that we were able to take back for our garden. It was the middle of the afternoon and the sun was pretty fierce. Took me a while to recover from climbing the hills and in that hot sun. We stopped in Las Cruces and checked into our hotel and then headed for White Sands National Monument. We drove through the White Sands Missile Range. In 1945, they detonated the first atomic bomb there. The have also used this area to test other missiles, air craft, RADAR and even the lunar crafts. We got to White Sands National Monument at the perfect time. It was starting to cool off and the lighting was amazing. White Sands is sand dunes made of very white gypsum for as far as you can see. It looked like we were walking in a winter wonderland because everything is so white. We walked up and down across the dunes as we watched the sun set and the full moon rise. We chased very large black beetles across the very white sand. I think that I took about a million pictures. I will put a few on the blog. When we get back to Mount Vernon, I will put up a more extensive photo album of our whole trip.

July 7 El Paso

2006-07-07T19:27:00.000-07:00

July 7 El Paso

We decided to stay in El Paso today since there was a lot that Erik wanted to see from when he lived here about 20 years ago. We went to Horizon City where Erik lived when he was in middle school. We drove by 4 of his houses and a few of his schools. He says that it has changed a lot. He has lots of stories about exploring the desert around his house by foot, bicycle and motorcycle. We drove out to a lake but it was mysteriously fenced off with a guard. So we decided to go to Hueco Tanks. Hueco Tanks is this really neat land formation where the Indians used to go because the rocks would hold water. There are petroglyphs on the rocks. As we were driving out on gravel roads, we got to a point where the roads was washed out from the storm yesterday so we had to turn around and go back. We didn’t get to Hueco Tanks this time. We then drove to Socorro and Ysleta to see some old missions that were built about 400 years ago. Then we went to a few stores selling Mexican crafts. (We wanted to go into Juarez, Mexico, but it was getting to be late in the afternoon. ) We are right on the Mexican boarder, you can look out and see the city of Juarez on the other side of the Rio Grande. We went to a library and used the internet to get a hotel for tonight. (Last night we had quite the adventure finding a hotel and then the hotel didn’t have internet.) After dinner we drove to downtown El Paso. Lots of neat old buildings mixed in with some new ones. Now we are taking it easy in our hotel room. We have another full day planned tomorrow.

July 6 Fort Worth to El Paso

2006-07-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

July 6 Fort Worth to El Paso

We are about 2/3 of the way through the 600 miles we will go today before we sleep tonight. My mom spoke as a true East Texan today when she said that today we probably wouldn’t see much. Well, we haven’t seen a lot of trees or towns, but we have seen some interesting sights. (I’m with my Mom though, I like the trees.) West Texas is oil and cow country. Everywhere we look there are oil wells. Almost all of the billboards advertise either bar b que or boots. This is a very different part of Texas than the Piney Woods of East Texas. I forgot to mention some of the interesting animals we have seen since leaving Nac. On the way to Fort Worth, we saw zebras, camels, long horn and bison. Those were all at an exotic game ranch. Today we saw ostriches, also at an exotic game ranch. But, we have also seen burrowing owls and prairie dogs just out in the fields. The owls reminded me of the book “Hoot”. The prairie dogs are really fun. They just make their homes along the highway in the median of the highway. We drove through Midland, Texas. Midland is way out in the middle of nowhere, but all around there are oil and gas wells. There are also several tall buildings which look really strange out in the middle of nowhere. Midland claims to be the home of George W. and Laura Bush. We went to a Presidential Leadership museum in Odessa, the next town over. I thought that it was going to be all about the Bushes but it was actually a collection of things and info from all of the presidents. It went in chronological order and was a nice history of the U.S. YIPES!!! The speed limit just changed from 70 miles an hour to 80 miles an hour!!!!. The road is straight and long. But I still find it scary to go that fast. Next to the museum, they had the first house that the Bushes lived in in Texas. They moved to Texas for the first time in 1948. Hmmm…. Daddy Bush was 24 and Baby Bush was 2. Neither of them were born in Texas….:) We are just passing through Pecos, Texas. They are the home of the first rodeo. This is where Judge Roy Bean dealt his justice and they grow some mighty fine cantaloupe here.

Near Van Horn, we went through a beautiful desert thunderstorm. We could see it coming from miles away in the Davis Mountains. We could also smell the rain before it actually started to rain. Just another neat desert treasure. In Van Horn, there had been a little flash flood. There was a lot of standing water. Everyone was out in the streets playing in the water. We are guessing they don’t get much rain here.

We had dinner at Cattleman’s Steak House at the Indian Cliffs Ranch outside of Fabens. The restaurant has a lake and a zoo as well. It is on top of a mesa and the views of the desert at sunset were pretty. We didn’t get to get out and explore the zoo because it was raining. The food was great though. This is ranked one of the top 10 places to eat in Texas. I have been to 7 on the list.

Erik lived in this area for about 4 years and he has lots of stories to tell of his adventures in the desert around El Paso. It is nice to be able to do this with him since Arkansas and East Texas and the Dallas Fort Worth Area were my stomping grounds so he has been putting up with all my stories for the past week.

July 5 Nacogdoches to Fort Worth

2006-07-05T20:14:00.000-07:00

Well, Shania made it to another 'Cowtown" today. We even have pictures of her with a cow. I will have to add the pictures when I am on another internet connection. We left this morning from Nacogdoches and headed through Kilgore, Texas. Kilgore has an oil museum and the whole town was built by the early oil rush in the 20s and 30s. My grandfather worked in the oil fields and Kilgore is where my dad was born. We then headed West on I 20. We stopped in Terrell and saw my Uncle David. Then it was on to the Dallas Fort Worth area. This is where I grew up. We went by the house I lived in from the time I was 1 until my parents moved to Nac when I was 20. We also went by my old high school. We visited Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World. This is a huge outdoor store in Grapevine. They have all kinds of fish swimming in huge aquariums. We had a great visit with my mom's best friend Pat. She has always been like an aunt to me. There was a huge thunderstorm. I love thunderstorms. That is one thing that I miss in Washington. We then headed to my cousin Marsha and Tom's house. We had a really nice visit with them. Because of the storm, the power was out for 3 hours, but we just enjoyed visiting. Marsha lived with us when I was a little girl so she is kind of like my big sister. As we talked about tonight, this is the farthest west any of my relatives live, so this will be our last relative stop on the trip. Tomorrow we plan to travel another 600 miles across Texas to El Paso. Hopefully there I will be able to share my fireworks pictures and Shania and the cow from today.

July 4 Nacogdoches

2006-07-04T13:04:00.001-07:00

July 4 Nacogdoches

Happy Independence Day! We are enjoying our last day in Nac with my family. A few highlights so far were lunch at my favorite Mexican Food restaurant. (Not counting La Casita) and a walk through a beautiful plant nursery with lots of Native plants from Texas. I took lots of pictures. Those of you who know me, know that my vacation pictures are usually at least half close ups of flowers. Last night after I wrote, we went for a walk in the arboretum. The arboretum is on the college campus where I got my two college degrees. Erik and I were married there 8 years ago. It was really beautiful at that time of the evening.

Tonight, if it doesn’t rain, we plan on going down to the town square and watching the fireworks and listening to music.

Texans have a type of pride in their state that I have not seen in any other people. People fly the Texas flag in their yard, they paint whole sides of the barn with the flag. I know that I am guilty of this pride. I have a Texas flag and bluebonnets in my classroom. I grew bluebonnets in my yard this year and I have a Texas birdhouse in my back yard. The people who live down the street from us in Mount Vernon fly a Texas flag in their yard. I like to say that I am a proud Texan who loves living in Washington.

July 3 Nacogdoches and Tyler

2006-07-03T16:05:00.000-07:00

July 3 Nacogdoches and Tyler

This part of our trip is a little harder to blog about because we are just enjoying visiting with family. We aren’t doing a lot of sightseeing. But, I will put an entry anyway. This morning we drove to Tyler which is about 80 miles away to see my Aunt Annis. Tyler is know as the Rose Capital. They have a big Rose festival every year. It is a beautiful city in the piney woods. On the way there , we stopped at a memorial in New London. In 1937 there was a natural gas explosion at the school there and 311 people, mainly students were killed. This was a major world event at the time. They have a big monument telling about the tragedy and listing the names of all the students and teachers killed in the explosion. At this time, natural gas did not have an odor. Since this time, they have put an odor into the gas so that if there is a leak, it can be detected before this kind of tragedy could happen again. We enjoyed bar b que with my aunt and then headed back to Nac. We have had some rain so it isn’t as hot, but it is still humid. Think we will go swimming tonight.

July 2 Nacogdoches

2006-07-03T15:58:00.000-07:00

July 2 Nacogdoches

Just a family day here in Nacogdoches. My parents were pleased to fill up a whole row at church with our family. We enjoyed hearing Jared sing. Then it was home for a good Sunday dinner and now we are staying out of the heat and just enjoying being with family.

July 1 Nacogdoches

2006-07-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

Today has been spent visiting with family. My sister Juli and my two nephews from Houston came up for a visit. We took a little tour of Stephen F. Austin State University, my alma mater and then we went downtown to a shop called The Heart of Texas. Later, when it cools off a bit, we plan on going out and checking on a geocache we placed at Christmas and visiting the arboretum where Erik and I were married 8 years ago.

Nacogdoches is a famous town in Texas history and is known as the Oldest Town in Texas. Recenty, Nacogdoches gained fame because it was the center of activity when the space shuttle fell 2 1/2 years ago. There is a monument to the astronauts who lost their lives. Right after the accident, there were news crews here from all over the world. They combed the forest walking one hands length apart looking for debris.

The university has a world class Forestry department. Many international students come here to study forestry. Most people don't think of forest when they think of Texas, but we are deep in the piney woods. The college mascot is even a Lumberjack.

June 30 Little Rock to Nacogdoches

2006-06-30T17:44:00.000-07:00

This morning we left Little Rock and traveled south to Texas. We traveled through Hope, Bill Clinton's birthplace and Texarkana which is named after Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana because it is close to the borders of all 3. Our first stop was in the historic town of Jefferson. Jefferson was a big cotton town with plantations and such. They have lots of old plantation homes, and victorian mansions. We had a hamburger down town and then headed for the real attraction, my Aunt Peggy and Uncle Lynn's house. We had a nice visit with them. It was fun to show Erik where I used to play in the woods as a kid. We then headed for the oldest town in Texas, Nacogdoches. Nacogdoches is where my parents live and where I went to college. We will stay here until after July 4th. I will try to blog and take pictures as we do things around here.

June 29 Little Rock

2006-06-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

June 29, Little Rock

Today we have had a full day in Little Rock. This morning we went downtown to the River Market area. This is an area that used to be run down warehouses and is now home to the Clinton Library, Heifer International, a market and lots of art galleries and restaurants. We started off at the Clinton Library. This is my third presidential library to visit. The libraries are like a time capsule of the history that happened during that president’s time in office. Inside the library, the part you see is like a museum. But the library also houses all of the documents from his presidency. The Clinton Library is the newest and it has a lot of neat features. It is a Green building, meaning that it was built in a way to save energy and the earth’s resources. We enjoyed looking at all of the gifts given to Clinton during his presidency. The glass tree was a gift from Dale Chihully, the famous glass artist from Washington. They have a replica of the Oval Office and what it looked like when Clinton was president. We took a break from the Clinton Library to head next door to Heifer’s new headquarters. This is a brand new building and it is also a “Green” building. We went on a tour of the building to learn about all the features of the building that help to use less energy and less of the Earth’s resources. Outside, they have plans to build another Global Village like the one at the Heifer Ranch. They have a constructed wetland and are working to restore the area to its natural environment. They, of course, also told the story of Heifer and about the good work of Heifer. It is neat to see how intentional they have been on creating a building as their headquarters that also serves as an example of how to best use the world’s resources.

It is HOT here!!!!! I think that I might just melt. It has been a long time since I have had to endure a summer in the South. The reader board said that it was 98 degrees! And it is also humid. We enjoyed walking along in the River Market but I think I must have had a gallon of Diet Coke with my lunch.

After touring this area of town, we decided to go visit the capitol building. We thought it would be neat to compare it to the other capitol buildings we have seen. The Arkansas Capitol looks a lot like the US capitol, the Washington Capitol in Olympia and the Texas Capitol in Austin. The capitol building in Lincoln, Nebraska was very unique in comparison. We have the capitol building in Santa Fe to visit later in our trip and that one is also unique. In the capitol we were able to see where the Senate and House meet and walk into the Governor’s reception room.

We drove by Central High School. This was the first school to be desegregated in the nation. The school is still a high school but it is also designated as a National Historic Site. They have a visitor’s center across the street that tells the history of this event.

June 28, Eureka Springs to Little Rock

2006-06-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

June 28 Eureka Springs to Little Rock

This morning we enjoyed some time in the beautiful little city of Eureka Springs. We walked up and down a few of the curvy blocks and did a bit of shopping. We found a store that donated money to Heifer. We also went to see a 5 story statue of Jesus call the Christ of the Ozarks. We then headed down scenic highway 7 to the Little Rock area. The drive was beautiful passing through the Buffalo River canyons. We got to the Heifer Ranch just in time for a tour on a trailer pulled by a tractor. We saw different parts of the ranch and many animals. The ranch used to be where they raised the animals to send abroad. Now they purchase the animals locally so they use the ranch as an educational center for people to come and learn about Heifer and hunger and poverty issues. The neatest thing I think they have is something called the “Global Village”. They have homes made in the fashion of homes made in several parts of the world. They have an urban ghetto, an Appalachian village, a Guatemalan village, a Zambian village and a Thai village. Youth come and stay a night in one of the homes. They can only bring a flashlight, a sleeping bag and some bug spray. They don’t know which home they will be staying in. Each group has different resources. They have to barter with the other groups to get what they need. I would love for all of my students to have the opportunity to experience this. After visiting with the folks at Heifer, we headed for Little Rock. We passed through the town of Thornburg (no h at the end) on our way to Little Rock. It is hot and humid here. Very different than what we are used to in Washington. Takes a little getting used to. Tonight we went to eat at a Texas Roadhouse. Another place on Erik’s list. It was really good. Tomorrow we will go to the Heifer Headquarters and to the Clinton Library.

June 27 Kansas City to Eureka Springs

2006-06-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

June 27 Kansas City to Eureka Springs

Erik and I celebrated our 8th anniversary today. It was kind of funny that we were headed to Eureka Springs because both my parents and my sister (and probably my grandparents) honeymooned in Arkansas… J Erik got interested in going to Eureka Springs after reading about it in Eccentric America. I have been several times and have always loved it so was excited to show it to Erik. We started today in our fancy hotel room on the 39th floor of the Hyatt Regency in downtown Kansas City. Note the view out our window of the skyline. We walked around Crowne Center. This is where Hallmark Cards began. We were a little early so their wasn’t much open but we did see a neat Hallmark store and a Crayola Café that looked really fun. We then headed south to Arkansas. We passed lots of interesting places in Missouri. We stopped in Carthage for lunch. This is home to a Civil War Battle Field and also the Precious Moments factory…J We then drove through Bentonville, Arkansas, the home of Wal-Mart. It is interesting to note that there are lots and lots of millionaires in this town thanks to Sam Walton. We then went, at Erik’s request, to Rogers, Arkansas where they make Daisy Air Rifles. We visited a museum. Erik wanted to buy a bb gun but I talked him out of it. We then headed through the steep and winding roads to Eureka Springs. It has been a long time since I have been here so it was neat to remember places a long the way. By the time we got here, most of the stores were closed, but there was plenty of daylight left so we enjoyed walking along the streets of the historic district looking at the stores, old homes and springs. We hiked up to the Crescent Hotel at the top of the hill. Eureka Springs has been a resort area for about 150 years. People came to get healed in the hot springs. There are lots of beautiful old hotels and houses throughout the winding streets. They call it “Little Switzerland.” They also have a big outdoor play called the Passion Play where they reenact parts of Christ’s life. The “stage” is like the village of Jerusalem. There are live animals. It is really interesting to see. Up above the city on a high hill is the Christ of Ozarks which a huge statue that towers above and can be seen for miles around. This is a very unique and beautiful old town.

June 26 Sioux Falls to Kansas City

2006-06-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

June 26 Sioux Falls, South Dakota to Kansas City, Missouri

We didn’t get in to Sioux Falls until almost 11 pm. We really make the most of our days. It was great to find out that we had Wireless Internet so that I could get the blog updated. Erik also used the opportunity to get us a hotel in Kansas City for tonight. We didn’t see much of Sioux Falls since we got there late and then we were staying on the South side of town. Oh well, onward. Erik and I made our first visit to Iowa today. We just skirted the edge as we drove on the East side of the Missouri River from Sioux City to Council Bluffs. This is Lewis and Clark territory. They met with the Native Americans at Council Bluff to plan their trip west. We were surprised at how big Omaha, Nebraska was. This was also our first visit to Nebraska. Erik’s dad was born in Omaha, so it was neat to go there. We then took a detour to Lincoln, Nebraska. This is the capital of Nebraska. We went to a neat part of town called The Haymarket. It was a lot like Pike Place Market. At the Haymarket, we went to this store that sells only licorice. They had over 120 kinds of licorice from all over the world. Not a big licorice fan, but it was kind of interesting. We went to Iron Horse Park. This commemorates the history of the trains. Lincoln has many, many train tracks. Lots of food goes out from this area that they call the “Breadbasket”. Also at the Haymarket, we visited a Ten Thousand Villages store. This store is one of my favorites. It sells Fair Trade Crafts from around the world. If I see that store, I have to go in. Then it was off to the state capitol building. This building is a very impressive art deco building. The architecture and art were very interesting. We went inside with Shania and got a picture of her in the balcony rails next to a carved cow. Now we are on our way to Kansas City, Missouri. More later. We made it to the “Cowtown” of Kansas City. We had a Priceline room at the Hyatt in downtown K.C. Usually this means that we get the lowest quality room in a nice hotel. But this time, for some reason, we ended up in the club rooms on the 39th floor overlooking the skyline. We decided to go out for some Kansas City steak. We are looking forward to exploring a little of the city before moving on to Eureka Springs, Arkansas tomorrow. Stay tuned for photos later.

June 25, Custer, S.D. to Sioux Falls, S.D

2006-06-26T06:51:00.000-07:00

June 25, Custer, S.D. to Sioux Falls., S.D.

Was able to connect to the internet sitting outside our tipi! The connection wasn’t very good so I just took the time to post the last two days and set up a hotel room for tonight. Tonight, hopefully, I will be able to get pictures loaded and such. Right now we are on Interstate 90 headed for Sioux Falls. We have seen some really beautiful countryside today. The Black Hills around our campsite are exceptionally beautiful. Erik and I both commented that that is not the picture we have in our heads of South Dakota. We enjoyed walking around Custer this morning. It is a charming old town with lots of neat shops. Many were closed this morning because it was Sunday, but we enjoyed the walk anyway. They had 30 fiberglass bison that had been decorated by different artists. Just like our pigs in Seattle. We walked from bison to bison and took photos of all the different art styles. We also walked up to this funny place called Bedrock. It is Flintstone land. There was a giant statue of Dino and all around Dino there were marmots playing. They weren’t caged, this is just where they hang out. Erik and I decided to go in to Bedrock and take some silly photos. Right when we got inside, I realized my camera battery was dead. (Dead batteries would be a theme of our day.) We thought that we weren’t going to be able to get any photos there or of the rest of the bison on the way back to the car. Then I remembered that I had a charger with me. So, we just stepped inside one of the buildings in Bedrock and I found a plug and we plugged in the charger. While we waited, I wrote post cards. After our time with Fred and Barney, we headed out to see the giant statue of Crazy Horse that is being carved out of a mountain near Custer. So far, you can only make out the face, although you can tell that they have blocked out the horse. This statue has been 50 years in the making and has a long way to go. When finished, this will be bigger than Mt. Rushmore. At the site, they also had a really nice museum telling about the making of the statue and also about Native American culture. We then headed to Mt. Rushmore. The road through Keystone is really interesting. I was surprised to see how commercial Mt. Rushmore has become in the 20 years since I last visited. We had to pay $8 to park and we only stayed a few minutes. It is interesting, but since we had just been at Crazy Horse and seen a similar work in progress, we didn’t think we needed to spend too much time there. We then headed for Rapid City. We kind of skirted around the edges so didn’t see the whole city. One interesting thing was that they have these really cool bronze statues of each of the US presidents interspersed throughout the town. They are very lifelike and candid. Then it was off to the Badlands. We drove down this road that looked like it was going to nowhere. Erik saw a sign that said “to Wall Drug”. We thought that was the road that we needed to be on so we drove that way. We ended up traveling quite a distance on a gravel road through some really beautiful and interesting landforms. We saw lots of real, not fiber glass bison and a few prairie dogs. We then made it to Wall Drug. Back in the depression, the owner of this drugstore in Wall, South Dakota was looking for a way to get people to stop at his store. So he started putting signs up along the freeway offering free ice water. He liked the signs so he continued with the sign idea putting lots of signs along the highway. He also put up things like giant dinosaurs to get people’s attention. Now Wall Drug signs can be seen all over the world. They give away free bumper stickers in hopes that people will provide some advertising. The whole town is Wall Drug now. They have a café, lots of shops and lots of funny things like a 6 foot stuffed bunny, a jackalope that you can climb on and a giant roaring T-Rex. And now here we are still traveling East on I 90 on our way to Sioux Falls. Better try to get the pictures downloaded before the battery goes dead. (Oh, speaking of batteries, we tech savvy travelers have had batteries go dead in our laptop, cell phone, camera, GPS and MP3 player today. Luckily, we do have chargers and backups for everything.)

June 24 Missoula to Custer

2006-06-25T06:50:00.000-07:00

June 24 Missoula to Custer

Back traveling through beautiful Montana. Montana is somewhat like Washington. Its Westside is green and lush and the farther west you get, the fewer trees that you see. They call Montana Big Sky Country. Today there is a beautiful blue sky, and so far, rolling green hills with snow on the peaks in the distance. Shania is hanging out on the dashboard as we travel along. Last night it was really buggy. It was almost like it was raining bugs. Every place we stopped in Missoula had towels and cleaner so that you could clean the bugs off your windshield.

Just entered Wyoming after lots and lots of driving. Weve traveled over 400 miles in Montana today. We enjoyed a quick stop in the copper mining town of Butte with all of its old red brick buildings in the Historic Uptown. Looks like a neat town. There was a farmers market going on in the heart of town. We found out that Butte is the hometown of Evil Kenievel . The surrounding countryside does look like a great place to ride a motorcycle. (With a helmet of courseJ ) We had lunch in Bozeman. We ate really yummy Bar B Que and Famous Daves Bar B Que. This was a place on Eriks list because Consumer Reports had rated it really high. We are going to try and check out some of the restaurants he read about a long the way. We stopped at Greys Hill Prairie Dog Town State Park. We had fun watching the prairie dogs pop up and down. They were a little shy so I didnt get any real close up pictures. They were all over the place. We read a lot about how prairie dogs live. It was pretty interesting. Erik kept trying to get them to respond by talking with them like he does to Roswell. They dont speak Roswells language. (They arent really even dogs. They are a type of ground squirrel.) (Thought you needed to know that I did know that J ) Our next interesting stop was the Battle site at Little Big Horn. It was interesting because this just happens to be the weekend of the 130^th anniversary of Custers Last Stand. It was really interesting to see the place where all the soldiers fell. They even have a cemetery for the horses who died during the battle. 210 men died in the battle. It was interesting to see a quote from a Lakota Sioux Chief that said, Know the power of peace. Down below the battlefield, there was a Pow Wow going on at the Crow Indian Reservation. We were kind of in a rush because we still had a long way to go before our Tipi in Custer, South Dakota, plus we still want to make a detour to Devils Tower. More later. Well, it is a long way from Missoula, Montana to Custer , South Dakota. We had plans to make a detour to Devils Tower, but it was getting really late. So we decided to skip it this time. But, I missed the exit to Custer so we had to make a detour to get going in the right direction. It was only 5 miles out of the way, but because of that little detour, we did get to see Devils Tower in the distance. We have seen tons of pronghorn antelope and deer on our last part of the journey. This was especially treacherous when traveling the last 20 miles to Custer on some really steep and winding roads. Around every curve, there were deer. Around one curve we even saw an elk!. We got to our campground and got settled into our tipi. It is a really neat tipi. It looks very authentic. Pictures tomorrow. For now, it is time for some sleep before another day of adventure tomorrow. By the way, the last two places we have stayed have claimed to have wireless, but so far, I havent been able to make a connection. Was thinking it would be fun to send e-mail from a tipi in the Badlands of South Dakota. I will try again in the morning.

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June 23 Mount Vernon to Missoula

2006-06-25T06:46:00.000-07:00

June 23 Mount Vernon to Missoula

After saying goodbye to Roswell, Shania, Erik and Martha headed out on their Great American Road Adventure. We drove from Mount Vernon to Seattle, Seattle to Spokane. We drove through windy, green and lush Idaho and into mountainy Montana. We were pretty exhausted when we got to our hotel in Missoula. We had driven about 530 miles AFTER Erik got off work. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed driving through Eastern Washington which looks so different from lush Western Washington. The most interesting crop we saw (and smelled) was a big field of peppermint. We also learned that Grant County, Washington grows more potatoes than any other county in the country. (And they call Idaho potato country. We drove through the skinny part of Idaho. As Erik mentioned, if they straightened out the road it would be a lot quicker. We drove over 2 passes and by some out silver mines. We saw a couple of Eagles in their nests and several deer. Not much to say about Montana yet since we just got here in time to sleep. More tomorrow.

Thornburgh 6 Class Page

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June 23, Mount Vernon

2006-06-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

Well, Shania is off on her journey today. Roswell is saying good bye. Roswell will be staying at home with Erik's mom so he can look after the place. We are hoping to make it all the way to Missoula, Montana tonight. That is a LONG way to drive but at least we have lots of sunshine.

On The Road

2006-06-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

June 16, 2006

Today is the last day of 6th grade and we are all off on different adventures. Starting June 23, Shania will be headed out on a Great American Roadtrip. You can follow her adventures on this blog. You may also post comments to tell the rest of us about your own adventures.