Homeward Bound

No pictures this time because we are on our way home.  We are in Tucson at the Lazy Days KOA.  But it is HOT!!!  Yesterday it was 112 and today it's 90 and it's only 9:10.  But I guess it will be hot at home when we get there.  See you all Sunday.  Love, Mom and Dad

Colorado

This is Clear Creek here in Golden.  We are parked right next to it.  The RV park is about a half of a mile from the town.  Beautiful!

This is the Animas River down in Durango.  We were going to take the narrow rail train to Silverton.  We cancelled because the train follows this river. I took this from the TV.

This is why we cancelled.  There has been a toxic spill from an abandoned mine.  The EPA caused it.  OOPS!

This is the Clear Creek again with all the people.  It's amazing how popular this little creek is.

People ride down the creek in an inner tubes.

We're curious how many people will use it on a Monday,today.

 

We didn't take any pictures up in and around Fort Collins.  We drove one day on a circle drive that went into Wyoming and back.  We drove along the Poudre River.  It was about 200 miles long. And when we got back I bought a basket of the best peaches I've had in a long time.  YUM! The drive was beautiful and I forgot my camera. But I did get to see it.  We cut a week off of our trip because of the spill.  So we'll be home on the 22 instead of the 31.  We go to Pueblo tomorrow.  Then on to Santa Fe.  See ya soon.

Wyoming

 

We stopped along the Yellowstone River to see a Clark Site. We were in Sheridan WY.  Lewis and Clark split up around here.  Lewis followed the Missouri while Clark dropped down and followed the Yellowstone until it met back up with the Missouri.  This is called Pompey's Pillar named for the child of Sacaguea .I can't spell her name.

Clark etched his name and date into the rock.  It was on July 25, 1806. The park service has covered it with glass to save it.

In Thermopolis, WY we went to a cool little dinosaur museum.  We could have gone out to the dig site and could have dug, but it was too HOT.

These two pictures were taken on my phone.  So they look a bit different.

Also in Thermopolis we drove about 30 miles out of town to the Legend Rock site. The ranger was a hoot.  She lives in her RV out there and watches over the site for 5 months out of the year.  She was a talker.  The scratches in the desert varnish are as much as 11,000 years old. 

This is a sculpture at the Pioneer Museum in Douglas, Wy.  It was a really good museum.  There was tons of stuff to look at.  We decided it was so good because it is on the state fair grounds.  The sculpture was done by a local man.

 

 

We leave Wyoming in the morning for Ft. Collins, CO. We're going to be back up high. We plan on staying in that state for about 10 days.  More later

Love, Mom and Dad

Family Vacation

Three generations playing ring toss.

All of us but me watching THE soccer game.  USA won!!!

 

Nick got another Junior Ranger badge.

Nick loves water, and Mom loves taking pictures.

Bev and Marvin et al in Yellowstone.

One of the many waterfalls.

We ate lunch at Mammoth Hot Springs and saw this elk doe having a snack on the hotel lawn. 

We spent two days in the park. The scenery is still beautiful.

Old Faithful at the start of an eruption.

These are Kim's three.  Clair 11, Sterling 13, and Treste7.

One day we drove up to Earthquake Lake.  The quake happened on Aug. 16, 1958.   19 people were never found.   Twenty eight people in all perished. The trees are just now coming back to the gash on the mountain.

This is the Madison River that was dammed from the quake.  They had to dig a spill way or the lake would have drowned the villages up stream.

Earthquake Lake

The day before we all left West Yellowstone I took a pictures of each family.  This is Libby, Steve, and Parker.  He's a hoot.  He's so happy most of the time.  Its hard to believe he's 4 years old already.

Here's Rick, Paula with Sarah and Allie.

And last but not least, Chris, Shawna, Cheyenne (in light blue), Justin, and Taylor.

 

 

We had a great time with family and Libby is already planning another trip in 2017.  She is a great planner.  The only people who couldn't make it were Angel.  She had to work as did Bo.  Maybe next time they will be able to come.

 

We're in Wyoming today and for the next week.  We are just going slow and enjoying ourselves.  It's finally warm from Yellowstone. The three days we were in Billings, it was in the 90's.  Well that's about it for today.  See you all soon.  Love, Mom and Dad

On our way to the Kentucky Derby

This is the spring trees in Mammoth Caves National Park.  See the white cloud looking thing?  That is Dogwood.  It reminds me of clouds in the deep forest.

One of the roads runs right through a river.  Instead of a bridge they have a ferry that can hold three cars at a time.  It is towed along a high tow line.

We visited several distilleries.  This one is really fancy.

This one has a master distiller that has been there for 60 years.  His son is taking over soon.  It seems that being a master distiller runs in a family. 

This place hand fills their bottles and hand seals them.

Everyone of the distilleries has a visitor center. It was truly interesting to see how each of them work their product.  The recipe is generally the same with minor variations.  You'd think they get together and work together.

We started our Rally by going to Lexington to visit a horse training center.  These horses are two and are getting use to a race track. They are beautiful.

I got a shot of a horse with all four feet in the air.  As a matter of fact I got three shots.  I did good!!!

This horse has won several races.  And she is 9 years old.  Her trainer said she still likes to run so he lets her. 

We drove up the road to a park that has a theme of horses.  Surprise.  This was a show of horses from around the world.  This is a Morgan from the USA.

A gypsy horse from around Serbia.

And the Austrian Lipesaner.  I spelled that really badly, but you know what I mean.

Tuesday we went to Churchill Downs for breakfast and a tour of the race track.  The gray haired man is a commentary? from CNN. He was right by our table.

The room was in Millionaire's Row, and it is huge.  There must have been 500 people in there.  But the food was pretty good.

We got to watch some of the 3 year olds train.  It was awesome.

We had to get our picture made with our hats.  That wasn't my derby hat.

The place is very big.

The next day we did a lot of touring.  This is the Louisville Slugger factory.

We also went to My Old Kentucky Home.  Apparently Steven Foster wrote the song for this house.  He was a cousin of the owner.

I got stickers for my scrapbook here.  Everything has a gift shop.

Derby day  This was our section.  It was in the shade (thank goodness) it was really sunny.

Even some of the men wore hats.  The people watching here was better than Key West.  Some of the men wore the most outlandish suits.  One I saw on the big screen looked like a rubics cube print.

Everyone was standing up in the stands and I couldn't see the flag thing.  So I took a picture from the jumbo tron.

Josh Grogan sang the anthem.

Horse getting ready to go into the gate.

I couldn't see the gate.  But I held my camera up high and got this shot.

 

 

I'm glad I went, but I'd not do it again.  There was 170,514 people there.  We didn't do much walking around because of the crowds.  The seats in front of us were mostly empty until the Derby was run.  And they were pretty much empty during the last two races.  I can't believe people pay that kind of money just for the two minute race.  I guess there really are stupid rich folks.

 

We left Louisville this morning and are now in Columbus Ind.  Tuesday morning we head for Effingham, Ill.  We'll be at Aunt Beverly's for Mother's Day weekend.

That's it for now.  Love, Mom and Dad