Arches until our arches have fallen arches

Arches National Park near Moab, UT. What more can I say? A picture is worth a thousand words so here are 12,000. Click on a picture to see it in as much glory as your computer screen resolution will allow. Go!

         

From left to right, top to bottom, Visitor Center Sign, the campground at sunrise, some cool buttes, Skyline arch, Geoff at Broken arch, Sand Dune arch, Turret arch, North and South Window arches, Ellyn in North Window arch, Delicate arch, Factory Row (named as such by Geoff), Laughing Dolphin (again by Geoff), the valley floor.

Colorado!!!

There's lots of good things to say about our trip to Colorado.

We had a great time visiting long time friends from when we worked at IBM and lived here from '82 to '86 plus lots of tourist time. It was so nice to pick up where we left off and to catch up with everybody!

Geoff has posted some photos on flickr - the link is to the left.

Here's a summary....

• A great dinner in an airplane (really!) restaurant with Amy and her family.
• A bike ride surrounded by red rocks spires in Colorado Springs followed by sips from the nearby springs.
• A Walnut Brewery lunch, near the Pearl Street Mall, with Yuma Circle neighbors John & Jamie. Plus a quick chat with one of Logan's and Brian's first pals, Nick. who is newly engaged and in the midst of planning a New Year's Eve Wedding.
  
• A relaxing visit with Andy who is the only person to have attended our wedding as well as the Bris of both Logan and Brian. We also met his delightful daughter, Sarah, who is an Art student in San Francisco.
• A visit to Margaret's and Dennis' 15th floor condo that overlooks Denver & the Rockies' stadium. Had fun dining with them in a nearby sports bar/cafe while the game was playing and the Rockie's comeback from being down 3-6 to win 14-11 delighted everybody.
  
• A great dinner with Diane and David. Jamie, Diane and I were charter members of a book club that they still belong to more than 25 years later! Ellyn received a nice list of recommended reading from Diane! :-)
• A tea-riffic tour of Celestial Seasons with yummy tea tastings!
  
• Really enjoyed two days in Rocky Mountain National Park with breathtaking views. After huffing in the high altitudes, I'm more appreciative of the oxygen we have at lower altitudes!
  
• Enjoyed a bike ride along Boulder Creek Path and, today, a bike ride along the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon.
  
• Had a most relaxing swim in the enormous and renowned Glenwood Hot Springs pool. Of course, we couldn't help but remember back Brian's first swim, there, at the age of 3 months.
  

In a few minutes, we'll be leaving Glenwood Springs for Utah's Arches National Park. We'll be in the SF Bay Area in less than a week!

We, in fact, ARE in Kansas, Dorothy

And it is turning out to be a somewhat more interesting place than we expected. Of course our expectations were quite low, since you expect to see nothing but flat and cows in this state after you pass Kansas City.

We “snuck” into the state via US 50, I-470 and I-435 instead of the usual route from St. Louis of I-70. This was mainly because we stopped in Sedalia, MO for the Missouri State Fair (a great state fair). We love state fairs of all kinds and this was a chance to go to a real western one, not one of those wimpy eastern fairs, like the Big-E, where you have to get 6 states together to have one decent sized fair. No, this one had real cowboys.

Anyway, this put us 16 miles south of I-70 and close to US 50, so we opted to follow US 50, which put us closer to I-70 after crossing over into Kansas. Then we rejoined it and continued. When we got to Lawrence, KS, we stopped for lunch. We went all the way into the downtown area and found a BBQ place. We had to take up 3 parking spaces but the meter rates were reasonable. After lunch, we walked around downtown a bit and did some window shopping. Then back on the road.

We stopped again in Topeka to see the Brown vs The Board of Education National Historical Site. It was in an old school house which was one that the black children had to attend instead of the one closer to their home. The case was filed in Topeka to avoid deep south politics and because, in Topeka, the schools were separate but they were more-or-less equal. In that way, the case would clearly test whether segregation of schools should be constitutional. As we all know now, Brown vs. Board of Education was just the first step in the long (hard fought) path to end segregation in this country.

When we parked at a KOA in Salina, right off the highway, Ellyn discovered that there was a hamburger stand in downtown Salina which had sliders since 1922 in the same location. The story made then sound very good so we had to unhook the car and go check it out. They were yummy.

Missouri State Fair - Sedalia, MO

When yesterday began, we thought we would end up the day in Kansas but the lure of attending a State Fair was too strong. We took an 18mile detour off of I-70 to attend the Missouri state fair in Sedalia which is about 70 miles East of Kansas City. We parked/camped in the adjacent campground that had water and electric and then entered the fair at 5pm for on $5 each. The highlight of the evening was the Cowboy/girl Mounted Shooting Competition. The video (taken on my Palm Phone) is a bit fuzzy and it got smokey in the arena from the gunfire, but you can get the idea of the shooting course. They are shooting at balloons and had to go around the barrels using two guns each with only five bullets. So if they only get one shot at each balloon. They are timed and there is a (huge) five second penalty if they miss a balloon or knock over the barrels. The top competitors got all the ballons in under 15 seconds which is amazing consider they have to control the hourses and shoot. At the very end of the video, the women on the right side moves her head for a second and you can see the timing clock.



We also had fun going through the buildings, seeing the turkey calling contest, eating fair food, seeing the crafts (including some incredible quilts). The camping was good and now we're off to Kansas and points west.

Meet Me In St. Louis

The night before we arrived in St. Louis, we watched the great Judy Garland film, "Meet Me in St. Louis" to get us in the mood. Our main plan, here, was to visit our long time friends, Barbara and Joe. Many of you have heard the story of how we befriended them when Joe was our Rabbi in Rochester, MN when we first got married. Then they moved to Denver and the next year we were transfered to Boulder. Then we got transferred to Danbury and (this one was pretty amazing) then Joe became Rabbi of the small Conservative Synaogogue in Danbury. Unfortunately (for us) Barbara and Joe moved to Charlotte, a few years later, but we stayed on in Danbury. At any rate, we've been friends for more than 31 years so it's been really great to catch up with them.

Barbara and Joe hosted us for DELICIOUS gourmet dinners - first tuna steaks and then chicken breasts with a delicate sweet and spicey sauce. A highlight was meeting Barbara's and Joe's son-in-law and grandchildren especially since we met their mother she was just two years old.

During the days, we have played tourist a bit - visiting the arch, the zoo, the art museum. A highlight at the zoo was the penguins and also a mini-show by the St. Louis Muni Theater's kid's group. As always we made sure to have some regional food such Porter's Fried Chicken where Ellyn had favorite treats, fried okra and fried gizzards. Yesterday, we had hickory smoked BBQ and the heavenly treat, "Concrete" frozen custard at Ted Drewe's.

Today, we're taking the day off to hang around the RV but I'm hoping we do go out for more frozen custard! :-) We'll end Shabbat with our friend, Rabbi Josef Davidson, as he teaches during the Shabbat Third Meal proceeding Havdalah at B'nai Amoona.

Tomorrow, we start heading west with a goal to get into Kansas by the end of the day.

Gettin’ Our Kicks

After staying overnight near Springfield, IL, we had a short trip to St. Louis, MO and all day to get there. So we decided this was a great opportunity to get off the Interstate Highway grid and see some of rural America. Coincidentally, we were right next to old Route 66 which runs from Chicago to the west coast. We looked up some info on it and directions on how to get to it and found out that it was right across I-55 from the campgrounds. So we were off.

Ellyn got online and started reading about what we might see. In the next town we found an old gas station which had been refurbished but was not selling gas. We looked around for a restaurant she found listed but discovered it was really in the previous town. So we continued on.

Next we came to Henry’s Rabbit Ranch. Henry came out to greet us and we found out that, what appeared to be an old gas station was really built by Henry and decorated to look like an old gas station. He had pens of rabbits which he treated like his children and had little stories about each one of them and where they had been rescued from. He seemed like a very nice guy and we bought some souvenirs, petted the bunnies, and headed on down the road.

Henry had told us about a place to stop for lunch, so we hit Weezy’s Route 66 Grill. We parked across the street in front of a farmer’s stand, where we bought some fruit and vegetables after lunch. We had a nice conversation with the owner and his S.O. about our travels and he said it was his dream as well, and that they were going to take a trip at the end of the season.

As we approached the Mississippi River, we pulled off to go to the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, which used to be the road over the river on Route 66 until the 1970’s, when the bridge on I-270 was completed nearby. Now it is a pedestrian and biking bridge so we parked the RV and got the bikes out for a nice 2 mile ride (1 over, 1 back). We also saw a beach down on the river near the “chain of rocks” across the river and so we drove down there to see the river up close. Ellyn got stuck in the silt and we talked with a guy who had been fishing, and had some down-home stories for us. Once again, the RV was a conversation starter.

From there, we got back onto the interstate and headed to Babler Memorial State Park and our 4 day camping spot.

Quilts, Flowers, and RVs in Indiana

We're now camped at Elkhart County 4H Fairgrounds in Goshen, IN for a Newmar Kountry Klub (NKK) Rally. NKK is the owners club for RV's mfg'd by Newmar. Ther's 400-some RVs here. Rallies are pretty much like a convention except the topic is RVing and the attendees are all living in RVs.

We've really enjoyed touring the area around the Rally - very picturesque farms - many of which are owned by Amish who can be seen riding around in horse-drawn carts or riding bicycles. We've enjoyed visiting the many shops...noodle, cheese, quilt, garden, etc.

What we like best at Rally's is exchanging ideas with others about travel destinations and RV living!