Along Oregons Coast

We drove north and south from Brookings to look at the coast. The rocks and the water is beautiful. 

At least the sky was clearish.

This I called Natural Arch.

• 
• We drove up to Florence and took a buggy ride in the dunes.  It was a blast.

The tour was about an hour.  We went down to the beach and saw an osprey soaring above us.

We drove straight down this dune.  It seemed like the buggy was going to flip over. We went down at least three just like this one. It felt like a rollercoaster ride.

This more of the coast north of Florence.

That road down there is the 101.

The ocean was getting a little angry, and tide was coming in.

We're in Newport today and the last three days it's been raining like crazy. We may go into town and see some glass blowing studios.  We're hear for five days the weather is suppose to get nicer and warmer tomorrow.  Fingers crossed.

Love Mom and Dad

more photos

I remembered more pictures, so I'll show some more.  We saw deer munching grass near Yosemite Falls.

Look at all the water.

Half Dome.  It was closed because of snow.

Our friends were amazed by the size.

We had a good time so far.  We couldn't go down to the water level at Crater Lake because of snow again.  The snow was cleared up to the lodge and no farther.  I heard a ranger tell some one on the phone that the roads wouldn't be clear until sometime mid-July.  We got rain today here in Grants Pass.  The wind came up big time and a tree broke off and a little trailer got some big damage.  No one was hurt.  It was strange that the tree lost it's top from about 20feet up.  Weird

We leave in the morning for Brookings.

california

We are having a great time with our friends.  We showed them the Redwoods, the Sequoias, and Yosemite.  This is from the Redwoods.

The fish at the top of the frame is the high water mark from a flood of 1964.  It's about 20 feet up the tree.

This is a scene from Columbia State Park in the gold country.  It's a reproduction of an old mining town.

We're at Crater Lake.  This is Linda and Darrell Marshall.  They are from Michigan.

This is Sally and Gary Johnson.  They are from Utah.

I've not taken many photos so far.  And it's been over a year since I've used this program and I can't figure out how to get rid of the underlining.  I have to do each line at a time.  I'll figure it out by the time we get home.  

Anyway the falls at Yosemite where fantastic.  We walked up the lower falls and got drenched.  It was beautiful.  We also saw some people climbing El Cap.  Nuts...

This is all for now. 

Love, Mom and Dad

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