Welcome Back to Oregon - The View is Great!

It's been a strange trip back home.  We've spent a lot of time with family, which has been awesome.  But, we haven't made it out to the countryside quite as much as we were hoping.

We did make a trip over to Sisters, because I needed to get out to see some mountains.  I thought I would share a couple of shots we grabbed while we were there.  We'll put up a few more shortly, but these seem to be a great welcome home for us.

It's amazing how much time you spend looking at all of the gorgeous scenery, and how much a person can miss looking at it.  I look at these mountains and think ... how could anyone get sick of looking at these?  I know I sure can't.

Talk soon!
Al

A Top 10 Destination ...

I caught an interesting arrticle on Yahoo today.

10 places to see, in the U.S., before you die. Nice!


Anyhow ... one of the places just happened to be the 'Oregon Coast' - Highway 101. No surprise there, because there are stunning views all over the coast.

However ...

There was one little tidbit of info that I thought was very interesting:

"The entire coast is public land..."

Let me tell you - you WON'T see that in Florida! Sure there are plenty of public beaches - but even still - you gotta PAY to park and get to 'em.

I don't know this personally ... but apparently in the Florida Keys it's VERY difficult to find public beaches. Miles of water and beach - but only a few places open to the public. (Please correct me if I'm wrong about that?)


Anyhow ... I just thought I'd share that little bit of info with you.

Oh ... I almost forgot ...
Here's the article, in case you want to check it out:
10 Places to see in the U.S.

Also - Photo is the Heceta Head Lighthouse near Florence, Ore.
Source: Stuart Westmorland/Getty



Al

You won't see this in Florida

Looking through some old photos tonight, I stumbled across this pic from somewhere in the Gorge.

You won't see anything like this here in Florida.

I don't think there is an elevation change that is this big on the entire Florida peninsula.




However, we had a cool experience with the Sand Hill Cranes, today, that you wouldn't really have up in Oregon. And if we can get the pictures off the phone, we'll show you.


So - what's the best option?

I don't know ... maybe traveling back and forth between several places to live?

Oh yeah, but we're broke! That's right. I forgot.

Edward Medard Park - Hillsborough County Park

Picture this...

It's the day after Christmas. You and your family are all sitting around the house. The excitement and energy of Christmas day have worn off a bit, and you've been watching TV for the last several hours.

You're kinda bored, but you're not sure what you want to do.

So, you decide to go out for a nice hike that's a few minutes drive away.

Here's a recap of your hike - if you just happen to live in Central Florida.

Medard Park has a pretty nice playground area, and a neat little biking / exploring area for kids right near the entrance.

Here's the girls climbing on some of the play equipment here:



And then here we are exploring this neat little trail area, directly behind the playground equipment:





Finally, we actually made it onto the trail. Which turned out to be a horse trail, more than a hiking trail. Not a whole lot to see... besides the rear ends of a few horses. Unfortunately, it took us about a half hour walking around exploring before we even figured out how to get onto the horse trail to hike it.

It definitely WAS NOT clearly marked. But for all I know we could have been the only people who've hiked the trail in the last 6 months. Pretty much every one who rode by on a horse looked surprised to see us.

One nice girl actually asked if we had lost our horses back along the trail somwhere?






One thing I will say about hiking in Florida...

It's very anti-climatic.

You know, when you hike near mountains and other natural wonders (in states with more than a 30 foot vertical rise in elevation), you get to see some amazing, even inspiring things. But here, when you get to the end of the hike, you're not really gonna see any landscape more impressive than when you started.

Al

Something I don't want to forget...

So here is a little story from our trip that I do not want to forget. There is no doubt that God had his hand on us and his angels around us every step and tier turn along the way. We never even had a moments worry about the truck working, tire popping, or any of us getting hurt the entire time that we were traveling. As a matter of fact He has not lifted his hand from us in the least even since arriving here. He continues to keep us safe and sound and will continue on.

But anyway here is a particular story that I do not want to forget to tell about how we got to see one of his angels...

We were in St. Louis, MO and we were planning to spend the day down by the Mississippi River and the Arch.
We followed the signs to the down town area, and to the arch. There were signs that took us to the public parking, for the area, and when we got there they were closed for construction. So we looked around a little bit, and found a parking place were there were lots of other cars parked. It was under a freeway over pass.

After taking a bit of time to look around it, we decided that we would park there. Now we took some time to look around because it really did not look like a "nice" part of town to be leaving our truck. But not really knowing anywhere else to go, we decided to park there. So we found a little spot and parked. We get out, and there is broken glass all over in the gravel.

I ask Al once more, are you sure you want to park here? And he says, well I guess. So we all get out and lock up the truck and go to the back to lock it up also. As we go to the back of the truck, there is this man dressed in a Park Ranger uniform standing there. So he starts to talk to us.

He says I would not park here. There is an attended parking lot a couple of blocks up and over from here, and it would be a much safer place to park your truck. As you can see here, there are a lot of break-ins, and I am sure that if you leave your truck here they will break the window and take what ever they can. He then give us directions to get to the parking lot.

We thank him and get back in the truck to go where he told us. We back out, and look around for the Ranger that talked to us, and he is nowhere to be seen even though it took us only a few seconds to get in the truck and get going. He is gone.

I ask Al where did that guy come from? Did you see him as we were driving around in here? And he said no, I never saw anyone. Then I say well where did he go? We all look around, and we do not see where he has gone. There was no one walking around, and there was never any other car driving around the lot while we were there. We look at each other and just say, well I think that we have just seen a Ranger Angel.

There really is no other explanation as to how that "man" got there, other than he was an angel sent to protect us. We were able to find that other parking lot, and leave the car there, knowing without a doubt that that we could leave it there and be able to come back with it intact!
Praise God for his safety and protection!

Here are a few more photos from our day in St. Louis. The first is a self portrait of sorts. Can you tell what it is?

Indianapolis - The love of the road at the Crossroads of America

Ever since we left Santa Fe, New Mexico our trip had seemed to hit a slowly sinking threshold of enjoyment. Almost like you might experience sledding down a monstrous mountain on a snow sled...

at first, it is amazing, exhilarating, awe-inspiring, and every moment is just like gulping fresh pure energetic oxygen.

But as you plummet down the steep grade your excitement quickly fades into utter and sheer terror as you realize you're travelling headlong, at 100 miles an hour, at those massive trees, immovable rocks, and no prospects for braking directly ahead.

In the same way, heading east across America had been a quick descent into terrible heat, humidity, sometimes unintelligible southern accents, and a host of other unknowns.

And that is why Indianapolis was such a breath of fresh air, and a last gulp of refreshment before we started into our new life. It was nice to finally see familiar and friendly faces, to stay inside of 4 solid walls again, and to feel cool air. But at the same time it was almost like a call to finish the trip as soon as humanly possible, because the thought of staying in the sticky, nasty, sweltering humidity another night became unthinkable.

Here are our quarters in Indianapolis. Provided, and deeply appreciate by us, by Gary's Father and Mother, Gary and Judy Reinwald. Gary Sr., or Judy, if you ever read this...
Thank You from the bottom of our hearts for such great friendliness and hospitality to all of us. Even though you don't really know us, you still treated us like family. Thank you!



Needless to say, after we left Indianapolis we tried to take the straightest and fastest route directly into Florida. We didn't pass go, and we certainly didn't collect $200. All we wanted, at that point, was to finally get to our final destination - Florida.

Santa Fe's Treasure Trove of History

We decided to stay an extra day in Santa Fe, which turned out to be a great central hub for some historical site seeing.

Unfortunately, the girls aren't as 'into' history as we adults are. So they could only take so much of the historical sites.

Never-the-less, we did visit several of them, including...

Pecos National Monument - an old centrallized, key location for an Indian pueblo, which was later re-built as a Catholic church.

Here, you're looking at an old Native American pueblo ruin. The raised sides on the left and right of the picture used to be Indian homes that were about 2 to 3 stories high.

And this... is the catholic church, or what remains of it. This was built by the Spanish settlers to help the Indians transition into their new religious background. The catholics usually recognized an important religious and social location and then built their churches there so they could solidify their dominant position.


Ft. Union National Monument - A huge central supply hub for the Union forces during the Civil War. The confederates (Southerners) - tried to move up from the south and take over this Fort, in order to better supply their western advances and fund their further fighting in the east. Honestly, I studied history in college, and I NEVER knew the civil war was fought this far to the west.



Bandelier National Park - More SWEET cliff dwellings, with a short 3/4 mile hike allowing you to see most of the important spots quickly and easily.


Here's a shot of what used to be the cliff dwellings. The small round spots are the holes where they used to have floor poles for their second, third, and fourth floor rooms. Pretty neat place!

Oh, this is an original, native rock wall carving of a 'parrot', or at least that is what they tell you it must have been. Obviously the natives carved a parrot into the rock. The fact that it doesn't have wings is apparently not that important. To all of us it looked a lot like a dinosaur. But that's not possible... RIGHT?

The Great Sand Dunes and Beyond!

SO I am going to try my best to get got up on this blog thing.
THe photo above is of a beautiful sunset in Cortez as we were headed out of the national park one night.
After Cortez and Mesa Verda, Colorado we headed over to the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. It is really a thing to see. You are at the foot of the Rocky Mountians and there is this huge section of sand dunes. They are masive. Looking at them from afar they look big but not all that big. But then you get up to them and start walking up them and they go on forever and are HUGE!! Just masive! It is great soft sand perfect for running and playing in. We all had a blast walking up on hill then having a race to the bottom. Keeley really enjoyed rolling down them. When we got there we knew that the camp ground in the park was probably going to be full. So there is a state park that is about 15 miles from the national park that we decided to stop and get a place at. When we pulled in to that camp ground the ranger said he has about 6 sites left. He gave us the numbers and we deove around and picked one. By the time that we had un hooked and set up the trailer the others were all taken. I am glad that we got there when we did. The bad thing about it was it was completly bug infested. not the dunes thankfully but the campground that we stayed at. We did not spend much time there, thankfully. Or we would not have had much blood left. We went to the dunes as fast as we could but unfortunally by the time that we got there a big thunder storm had rolled in. We went to the visitor center for a while to see if it would roll by. It took a while but we decided to venture out. It was still raining but it was warm and we had fun! Not many people were out on the dunes. But it was not long and the lightning started again so we had to head back to the trailer for the night.
Also because the place was all about sand, I did not take the camera out. So I do not have any great photos of Keeley rolling or Al anf Kait running down the huge mountians of sand. But I do have this. Sadly we only took about 5 photos of this place.

We headed to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a few days of resting and sight seeing. Since we ended our Grand Canyon stop a day early we stayed an extra day in Santa Fe. Several months ago I had seen some travel magazine with photos of Santa Fe and these beautifull colorful houses I so wanted to go there to photograph them for myself. We were unable to find places that were as colorfull as the photos I has seen but I did have fun taking photos around town anyway! We took a whole day and walked around old town Santa Fe so that I could take photos! It was a ton of fun for me and tolorable for everybody els. We did stop to have lunch at a cool little place called Blue Corn Cafe. It was good mexican food! Here are a few of my favorite photos from that day!
This is the girls standing by the oldest house in the U.S. It was built in 1625. It is right behind that oldest church in the U.S., the San Miguel Mission, built in 1619.

Of corse I like the detail shots better than the others but I guess it is good to be able to see it all too.
Heres some more.




I have to give props to Al, He took the last photo.
Let me know what you think about the photos.
I will have to continue tomorrow.
So until then...

Highway 160 - leaving Arizona and heading toward Cortez, Colorado

So, now you know that the southern part of the Grand Canyon DID NOT appeal to either of us. In fact, we didn't like it so much that we left a day early. Christy didn't like the drive down from north Grand Canyon, but I did. I think she would have liked it more if she had been driving. Ever since that drive, I have been trying to let her drive WAY more so she's not so bored. If you've known me long, you know I'm not much of a conversationalist. And if you've known me as long as Chris has, you might regret having to sit silently with me for more than 5 minutes.

We left the Canyon in an easterly direction, and drove on Highway 160. In general, the trek on 160 from the Grand Canyon all the way up to the four corners, pretty much... SUCKS. That includes Tuba City. A town that I don't consider one of my top, most enjoyable cities of all times.

There is not a whole lot to see other than dry, flat, parched land with little in the way of viewpoints. There are 2 exceptions, and I might be stretching it a bit by calling them views.

First was this amazingly large grain elevator looking structure. Apparently they must move oil in this thing though, and not grain, because the road signs all tell you to watch for oil and water on the roadway.

That huge pipe crosses over the highway and runs up the mountain on the other side, delivering what can only be considered some of kind of priceless cargo. You can't tell it from the picture, but that thing is a monstrous silo - or at least it appears huge because it's the only thing you'll see along the road for about 50 miles.


Secondly, there's a town called Kayente. In all actuality, it's probably not much better than Tuba City, but they've definitely tried to modernize and update, and bring themselves into the modern world. Unfortunately, once you kind of see behind the wonderfully clean surface of the town, everything takes on the dirty, dusty feel of what Tuba City was to me.

Actually, the sites in this town are nice, but they are actually part of Monument Valley. In other words... to really see them you will have to leave Kayente. Making it a necessary, and maybe worthwhile stop. But also - NOT - on my favorite places to visit list.

Anyways, a few hours later we pulled up to the ever-so-impressive Four Corners monument.


I'll end it with this...
the National Parks have this little book you can buy - called a Blue Book. What it is... is a book you can stamp at each park or momument you visit. Each 'visitor's center' has a stamp that you can stamp in your Blue Book. There are sections, like Southwest and Northwest, in this book. After visiting Yellowstone we decided this was kind of a cool way to remember each place we had visited. We've been eagerly stamping all of the stops along the way after missing everything in Yellowstone. So, we walked over to the visitors center at the Four Corners stop to find that the door is closed and locked.

And guess what they have posted on the door?

Any ideas?

Nothing?


Here's what is posted on the Four Corners visitors center door...


CONDEMNED! Yep. Pretty impressive, huh? Oh, well, at least someone's making money from it.

Al