GOLDEN

On our way to Fort Collins, we stopped in at the Colorado Railroad Museum!
Here I am with my friend Reese who is doing some research at the museum this Spring. We were given a personal tour of the place.

They have over 100 historic narrow and standard gauge locomotives and cars exhibited on 15 acres at the foot of North Table Mountain, near Golden, Colorado.

Banjo playing is allowed on the trains!


... and they have rabbits running around the place!

UFOs

It must be something about New Mexico, I guess.

We are staying at the Hotel Don Fernando de Taos. It's a great place!

Flagstaff

The weather was great in Flagstaff!


I couldn't pass this place up! Hot and cold running bugs. Mmmmmm!

More Signs

In Seligman, et al




Today we are in Flagstaff, Arizona.

The $ide Trip

Aquarius

This seemed like a cool place. They said they had rooms, but they lied -- Or perhaps they just didn’t want the three of us in one bedroom!

I had a dream, and there she was…
I never go to these kinds of places because I don’t gamble, but I have a weakness for this particular machine. They are hard to find these days, but this one was in a corner of the Pioneer Casino. It is the ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ slot machine. Promoted by Barbara Eden, of the 1960’s sitcom, this machine features the voice of Ms. Eden as the Jeannie who prompts you to bet more money. “Yes, master, yes, yes, YES!!!” she likes to say when your items match up on the 'reels'.



Here she is paying out



No, I lost everything eventually!

On the road again

Got Dirt?

They gots dirt brokers here! If you need dirt or you have to get rid of it, these guys handle it!
They are a friendly bunch, too!


Is she HOT or what?
While we were driving from Walnut Creek (thanks again to Roger and Emily, the best hosts in all of California!) to Flagstaff, Arizona, the smartest member of our crew let us know that we were not going to get into town until 11:30 pm at the rate we were going.
The member I am referring to is none other than Ms. Navigon, our model 2100 GPS receiver. She is a real beauty with brains. She has a real nice feminine voice, and she can speak French and Spanish if you wish. She has been such a good friend on this trip, and on this particular occasion was happy to let us take a little side trip to Laughton, Nevada. We were able to get into that town at 8:30 pm.
I think she purposely manipulated us there so that we would be able to actually see what she looked like in person—at lest this is how one might fantasize how she might look, OK?. Anyhow, it sounds just like her. Here’s a short video with sound:

Wallnut Creek

A visit to Mt. Diablo

At the Havana Bar with Roger and Emily

The 4000

We are in Lafayette California at the Iraq War Memorial. This last weekend, 4 more of our troops were killed, making the total number of American war dead reach the 4000 mark. A group of people were quickly organized to rally at this memorial as four more crosses were added to the hillside.
Jeanne and I were interviewed at the rally by an NBC reporter. If we are on the television tonight, we will report on it tomorrow!

Eureka!

We crossed the Oregon border and are now in Kalifornia.

The Democrats are following us - and they're getting closer!

Oregon Caves
At the Oregon Caves National Monument:


The Democrats are following us – and they’re getting closer!
When we were in Yellowstone, one of the locals noticed that we had Illinois plates on our car and asked if we were part of Hillary’s group. Apparently Ms. Clinton was visiting a town in Wyoming about 10 miles from where we were staying.
This week we established our ‘headquarters’ in the town on Medford, Oregon. Since we traveled nearly 4,000 miles, the Prius was due for an oil change (yes, they have standard internal combustion engines inside them) so I decided to take it to the local Toyota dealer for a check-up and a little oil. Well, guess what? Barack Obama was down the street from the Toyota dealer at some place called ‘Kids Unlimited’.
A coincidence? I doubt it!

Ashland

Midsummer Night’s Dream
We were able to take in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and see a play about some kind of dream in midsummer. Apparently in this story, Hermia loves Lysander but must marry Demetrius, whom her best friend Helena yearns after. And Theseus, the Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, are at odds as their wedding day approaches. The mysterious origins of their conflict lie in the fairy world where Oberon, King of the Fairies, and his consort, Titania, have fallen into dissension. Yada yada yada, Love eventually is set aright through fairy magic, but not before some impish twists take the lovers and some aspiring actors on a humorous midsummer night journey. Good costumes and sets, but in our opinion the fairies stole the show and the audience went along. (BTW, much of the audience was much younger than what we were used to seeing. It was good to see a new generation of theater goers get into the habit).
The aspiring actors in this bit were hippies from the ’60's driving a VW bus on stage! An acid trip of sorts and the kind of thing I should have expected! Bravo, I say!

MEDFORD?

Central Oregon

Today we are touring central Oregon. If we see anything interesting, we will report on it!

122 14 54 W 43 05 23 N
8 feet ‘o snow

We took the mountain route south to Medford. The roads were clear, but you can see how much snow fell over the winter!

Bend or bust

Thanks again to Pat and Tim for putting up with us for a few days. The corned beef and cabbage on Monday was super! We love you guys!!!

This morning we are heading East toward Bend via the Santiam Pass. The latest report says that there is 118 inches of roadside snow with one inch of new snow. It should be OK, but we do have tire chains just in case.


Girls Rock
We stopped in at the BENDfilm: independent cinema group and learned about a showing of a movie called Girls Rock. It’s a documentary that follows students through a summer camp at the Girls Rock Institute. This special showing included some live rock and roll by some local students as well as a panel discussion by members of the BENDfilm: group. We recommend this one, for sure! Check it out if you get a chance! It looks like it will open at your local art theater soon. See here.

It's Monday - Back to work!

I think there were about 1000 or so people at the anti-war parade. The percussion group was called Samba Ja, and they were great!
Here's a link to the video in the local paper.

Eugene PeaceWorks

Man, it's been 5 years!! 5 YEARS!!

Basil, Drums, Buddy's and The Cabin

At Sweet Basil Thai. Try the Puff Puffs! They're GREAT!


A Hand Drum Company:


The toilet at Buddy's Diner:



It's raining and we have some things to do. I needed to get some batteries and a new memory chip for the camera. We are also checking out various Eugene locations.

Here's a few more pictures from the mystery cabin:

Oregon days

We were greeted with this rainbow as we entered Eugene, Oregon.
On the way, in Lewis County Washington, I found out that the Prius can go 80 miles per hour apparently. I get to contribute $113 to the county (sigh!)

Rainy - er

The view of Mt. Rainier from Olympia. Sorry, it's kind of cloudy.


Jeanne at the Budd Bay Cafe with a cosmopolitan!

Signs

Today's gas in Sequim, Washington

Pilot boats at Ediz Hook in Port Angeles, Washington

Car Float

122 40 21 W 48 09 34 N


We said goodbye to Mt. Baker this morning. Here we are taking a ferry from Keystone to Port Townsend.

Cats, bergers, tires, oh my!!!

Cat on Back:



Burger ME? Burger YOU !!


Bellingham PAINT YOUR WHEEL days

Here we have local citizens of Bellingham painting the wheels on the cars of out of state visitors. Our Prius’ wheel was painted yellow so that we would fit in with the rest of the crowd.
Actually, we met some new friends in town who were lending a hand to help change our tire. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BEING THERE!!! I’m not sure how the tire got the way it was, but it had to be destroyed!!


ON THE ROAD AGAIN!

The Prius went up on the lift at Mr. Schwab’s garage where the nice man put the old tire out of its misery. A new tire was found and we were back on the street in less than 45 minutes.

Peaceful Surroundings

We have to drive 35 miles into Bellingham to get a cell phone signal and/or internet access. That’s OK, because we are visiting Bellingham anyway. I will not be able to update what I do this afternoon until tomorrow, so this is all I have to report.
Here is the view from our window:

We have landed!

We are kind of remote. Our cell phones don’t work. There is no wi-fi. Not even a television! (Actually, it’s kind of pleasant. It’s near Mt. Baker and it is breathtaking!)

There’s this spooky cabin down the river that we are going to investigate further.

Wait and see what we find out!

Are we there yet?

Today we are traveling along Washington state’s I-90 corridor from Spokane to Seattle and then North along I-5 to Glacier. We will spend about a week in this area and then head south.

Cider House Rulz!

Nope! We did NOT take I-90 to I-5. We decided to take a far northern route, even though the map said ‘Closed in Winter’

It was a great idea, to some extent. We saw the Grand Coulee Dam and traveled through the Coulee Corridor and out to points further West, at least until the sign said ROAD CLOSED!.

After some back-tracking, we were treated to the apple orchards from Brewster to Wenatchee. Wow! I never realized that Washington apples grew in such a beautiful environment! Some day, I’m going to be a Washington apple!

This side trip added about four hours to the driving time, but it was worth it!

Aminalz

Buffalo Chip Detail (Gardiner)

There are times when the buffaloes or bisons are about, they manage to get into the Gardiner High School football field to have a ball field nosh. They leave the field
when they are done, but also leave the famous buffalo ‘chip’, about 20 cm in diameter and maybe 2 to 3 kg in weight. Any teenager who has been given a detention on the previous day gets to clean the field of the chips!

No Wolves today (Yellowstone)

We saw some fellow travelers by the side of the road with all sorts of telephoto camera equipment. We stopped to take a picture of this elk drinking water. Apparently the other travelers were not interested in this elk. Their cameras were trained on an animal carcass maybe a mile away. They were waiting for wolves to come!


Steel beaver (Someplace in South Dakota)


This decorative item was part of a rest stop. We just happened to stop in at the same time that a prison work crew was using the facilities. They were wearing orange uniforms with the word ‘INMATE’ on their backs!




Wallamals (Wall, South Dakota)




Wall Drugs, SD. Jackalopes be damned! Good taxidermy, though.

Buffalo and banjo

110 27 39 W 44 56 52 N

It was snowing! I saw this solitary buffalo (see arrow) .
The North entrance to Yellowstone National Park is in Gardiner, Montana. In the winter, most of the park is closed. The buffalo and elk must miss all the tourists, because they start to roam off the park property. When we returned from the park in the afternoon, there were several buffalo walking down main street.

Everyday Heroes 2008

98 01 32 W 43 42 53 N

Corn. The arrow shows where the banjo player stood on this day at 8:37 am.

Shooting Star!

96 37 15 W 43 36 36 N
We both observed a shooting star at this location! This is considered lucky, right?
Currently the internet connection keeps dropping out, (cosmic disturbance?) so I will get back to this later!
We were about 10 miles east of Sioux Falls, SD going west on interstate 90 at around 7:30 PM CST. The meteoroid looked as if it crossed our path. It was our own personal show!
We normally can’t see meteor showers due to the city lights where we live. This was a real treat!

Hi Girls !

87 37 51 W 41 53 25 N
I think it's a Road trip party. We had a 14 passenger stretch Humvee take us out to the Baton Show Lounge.




The Baton has thrilled audiences with its world-famous, Vegas-style revue of female impersonators since 1969. It's the longest running show of its kind in the country.

The big Humvee was awesome! It was a smooth ride. Gabriel, our driver, said he gets eight miles per gallon.

If I have time, I will add more pictures. Here's our cast of travelers: