Mitchell SD, 7-30

Today was our 3rd day on the road since we left Bellevue Wa on Friday.

We’ve covered about 500 miles per day. Tomorrow we end up in Boonville Mo.

Leah had basketball camp last week. I took her 3 days. This is her camp picture.

She is 9. Some of these girls are in 9th grade. The coach was impressed with her as she hustles and has a pretty good grasp of the basics. The coach is the Junior High girls BB coach so maybe…

For those of you following, you may remember that we had the Little Big Horn National Monument on our itinerary on the trip to Seattle however we ended up not having the time to go.

Yesterday we were driving along anticipating an early arrival at the hotel when we spotted a sign for the monument and decided to spend the 2 hours and take it in.

It was a wonderful stop. It’s on the edge of the Black Hills so the terrain sort of reminds me of that area.

This is the site of Custers last stand with the 7th Calvary taking heavy losses and with Custer’s team wiped out.

It’s a very solemn area. There is a cemetery for veterans which, if you have a reservation, you can still be interned here. The reservation is required as the site is full.

Here are some pictures.

Those interned on this site are Native Americans as well as American soldiers. The site is over 5 miles long and probably 3-4 miles wide. It’s gets about 325,000 visitors a year. Many come to visit the graves of family (only 125,000 visit the Visitors Center each year).

We plan to be home on Thursday and are looking forward to sleeping in our own beds. It’s been a wonderful trip. I will likely not be making any further posts as it’s just driving from here out.

Ciao for now.

Renton Wa 7-19

We’ve enjoyed the past weeks with Leah. Chuck and Heina have joined us a lot but they are working so it’s usually around dinner and on weekends.

We play games with Leah a lot. She also has a busy schedule with basketball, piano, dentist, we’ve seen 2 movies with her and we can’t forget Pokémon which seems to be a daily or every other day run to the park where she walks me around for hours chasing I don’t know what on the phone screen.

We also spend 1/2 hour a day doing math. Today was least common denominator and she is only going into 4th grade. Very competitive education environment here in the northwest. She also does an hour a day reading and 1/2 hour of piano practice.

We have also completed the rental of this Air B&B again for next summer. We are enjoying this property much more than last years. It has 3 bedrooms and 3 baths (the master and Leah’s each have their own). The location is as good as it can get. I found a new Taco Bell as the one I was going to the past years continues to be freezing cold. I took the temp and showed it to the manager. It was 64 degrees in there. His only comment was that the thermostat only goes down to 65 and did nothing to change it. The new location works out perfectly.

Here are a few pictures of a walking food tour we took in downtown Seattle.

And a few more pics of our time here…

We don’t leave until Friday the 28th (a week and a half) and are driving straight home arriving on Thursday, 8/3. No planned stops along the way. Relatively easy days between 350 and 520 miles.

Ciao for now.

Spokane Wa, 06-30

It’s been a couple of days crossing the middle of the country. Some beautiful views.

We left Rapid City SD yesterday morning and overnighted in Belgrade Mt. 470 miles. The ride from Chicago has been almost all the way on Rte 90 (from the hotel in Napierville to 90 was only 30 miles or so with the rest on 90).

When we got to Belgrade I got off and headed for a car wash to clean all the bugs off the truck. On the way it felt like I ran over something but looking in the rear view I saw nothing. I pulled into the car wash (the wand type) and as I applied soap to the truck noticed the right rear flat. A new tire put on June 2nd. Bummer.

A big cut in the tire. Had an older tire put on (they didn’t have what I needed so a 2018 tire for $80 had to do until I get to Seattle and can order a new one. Unfortunately they do not cover punctures from large pieces of metal in the road.

Back to the beautiful ride.

Today we drove from Belgrade Mt to Spokane, about 400 miles. Had lunch at a nice diner along the way.

Some pics from both days…

Goldenrod all over

Seems this is the first view of the Rockies each year we make this drive.

We were driving alongside the Yellowstone River yesterday and Connie spotted a collapsed bridge. It’s the one that’s been in the news. I pulled over and took these pics.

Tomorrow we arrive at Chuck’s. Short ride really. 275 miles. We’re not permitted into the house till 3:00 so we’ll hang out in the morning and then take the 4 hour ride, unpack then meet up with Chuck.

Ciao for now.

Rapid City ND, 06-28

Easy enough ride today and the rain held off until we were 15 miles out.

Not a lot of highlights. We had very little smoke.

Had lunch in Oacoma, SD at a place called Al’s Oasis. I’d highly recommend it. It’s like Wall Drug only smaller. They had buffalo instead of dinosaur. And, yes… we had the chocolate silk pie!!! Yummy.

We did travel through the Badlands and Wall.

Ciao for now…

Fairmont MN 06-27

Well… It’s been a minute…

We spent time with friends Pam and Bill. Had a nice time in Pekin Il.

Then traveled to Ron and Nancy’s in Napierville Il. Really great spending time with them.

Obviously not a lot of pics. Just time with friends and family.

Today we drove from Napierville to Fairmont Mn.

We really got into the smoke from the Canadian wildfires today.

You can see the red haze and how difficult it is to see very far. I’m hoping that when we are in Washington that the smoke is blowing east and not south.

Ciao for now…

Huntsville Al, Wednesday 6-21

Well, today was all about US Space and Rocket Center here in Huntsville.

I loved the displays and the Planetarium where we saw a presentation on the Webb telescope.

Here are just a few of the images I took.

This is obviously the Space Shuttle launch vehicle minus the shuttle which normally sits atop this. It was out being refurbished.

The Lunar Excursion Module and the accompanying rover and a rover trainer.

This is the actual Apollo 16 capsule after it’s flight to the moon. Talk about cramped quarters for 3.

Some of you may recognize this ring. It is the computer section of the Saturn 5. It was placed just below the LEM in the configuration and contained all the processing, memory and gyroscopes for the flight.

Saturn 5 booster with it’s 5 F-1 engines. Cost per launch in the 60’s was $185 million dollars. A mere fraction of the cost of a Boeing/Lockheed Martin launch today (which spends $2b per engine which gets dumped into the Atlantic after each launch).

This thing is HUGE!

The one obviously missing part of the collection is virtually no mention of SpaceX. A little disappointing but understandable as I believe most of the funding for the complex comes from the Boeing type companies who want to forget that SpaceX even exists. That’s a shame but, I guess for now, we have to live with it. I imagine in a few years SpaceX will have their own complex highlighting all of their achievements. I look forward to that day.

Tomorrow we leave for Pekin Il. to visit with our friends Bill and Pam.

Ciao for now.

Huntsville Al, Tuesday 6-20

We drove our shortest drive day of the trip today.

Last I wrote we were looking forward to a nice southern meal. Well it turned out to be an excellent southern Italy meal.

We ate at Giardiano’s. I had the pappardelle bolognese and Connie had the veal marsala. Both were excellent.

We made the drive to Huntsville today and lost an hour along the way (CST) and arrived around 11:00 but were fortunate that the hotel (Holiday Inn Express) had a room ready for us.

We dropped off our stuff and headed into town for lunch and for a drive around. Really nice town. Some old majestic homes. The population of Huntsville is around 220,000. It has an old town flavor under the covers but is quite modern as a lot of the space and automobile industry resides here.

Tomorrow we have tickets to Space Town. I’m really looking forward to that.

Tonight for dinner we went to a little place about 15 miles out of town. It was recommended by the lady who checked us in earlier. Good southern cooking.

Place is called Greenbrier Restaurant and is tiny but lots of diners.

I had the catfish with their coleslaw (made with vinegar and sugar) and a baked potato. Connie had the shrimp with coleslaw and sweet potato. They served the best hush puppies I’ve ever had. Light and tasty.

So… I got my southern meal.

Till next time…

Ciao

Chattanooga TN Monday 6-19

Nice easy ride over 2 days. We had originally planned on leaving on Sunday and driving the 688 miles in one go however we decided to leave a day early and split it into two easy days so that we could enjoy Chattanooga and Huntsville.

Spent the first night in Valdosta Ga where we arrived after an easy drive day of only a 5 hour drive.

Our second day was easy as well.

We had to stop at Buc-ee’s to stretch our legs.

We arrived yesterday around 2:30 and took a ride into town to take advantage of the sunny afternoon.

We had a very nice dinner at Puckett’s. I had Smoked Meatloaf, mashed potato’s and collard greens. Connie had chicken wings with BBQ sauce. We then walked around a bit to walk some of it off and enjoyed seeing the city. I’m glad we did as the weather turned on us today.

Well, the portion above here was typed up this morning. We were waiting around for the weather to break a little as it’s been raining overnight. We eventually headed out as we wanted to visit Lookout Mountain.

We went to the train station at the bottom and took the trip to the top of the mountain.

It was still quite overcast and had begun to rain again. We pressed on and walked the loop out to the overlook.

As you can see in some of the pics, it was raining here and there and once we had walked all the way in it started to really come down. We hung out in a small museum building and read up on the photographers from during the Civil War. The area we visited was the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park. The Civil War battle of Lookout Mountain took place here on and around November 24, 1863. There were 6,667 Confederate soldiers killed, wounded or Missing and 5,824 Union same.

After returning to the bottom of the mountain we stopped for ice-cream for Connie and Taco Bell for me.

Tonight we hope for some more southern cooking.

Tomorrow we’re off to Huntsville Al and Space Town!

Ciao.

Summer 2023 Day 0

Tomorrow, 6/17 we leave for our summer trip.

This summer we are visiting Chattanooga Tn, Huntsville Al (SpaceTown), friends Bill and Pam in Pekin Il, Connie’s brother and his wife in Napierville Il then on to the Little Big Horn Natnl Monument and then Bellevue Wa visiting Chuck, Heina and Leah (she is 9 now) where we will spend the month of July.

Following that we head directly home and expect to be back first week in August.

Not sure how often I will be posting but I will try to do so as we visit some of the friends and places.

Australia – New Zealand Movie

I began work on this after arriving home. It is available on YouTube.

Enjoy