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We began the summer with a visit to Tucson to watch a dog and two cats for a friend while he was away. We had watched them before so we were all familiar with one another. Tucson is hot in the summer so we took our walks and walked the dog very early, soon after sunrise, to avoid the midday heat. Later in the day we enjoyed the backyard pool or just stayed inside where it was cool. One day we paid a visit to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, where we attended a demonstration of several desert birds in their auditorium. It was interesting to see these beautiful birds up close. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We left Tucson at the beginning of August, on our way to Zion National Park and Las Vegas. We had spent part of our honeymoon there in 1974 and we were returning to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. On our way we spent the night in Page, Arizona, and we stopped to take a look at Glen Canyon Dam, which forms Lake Powell. We also stopped at Pipe Spring National Monument in northern Arizona, originally a Paiute homeland and later the site of a fort established by Mormon settlers. Pipe Spring has a reliable water supply so it was of great value to those living in the nearby desert.

We enjoyed our return to Zion. It is one of the most beautiful National Parks and we had a hotel room with a patio with a great view of the red cliffs, which we enjoyed. We took a morning hike in Zion Canyon and were somewhat alarmed by how crowded it had become, not like 50 years ago. The next day we ventured out to Kolob Canyons, a more remote section of the park, and we were greeted by much smaller crowds and more serenity. After Zion, on our way back to California, we spent a night in Las Vegas and had a fancy dinner. We had been to Las Vegas on our honeymoon, as well, and it, too, has changed a lot in 50 years.

When we returned to California we spent a long weekend in the Bay Area, visiting with Andy and enjoying one of our favorite walks along the waterfront at Crissy Field in San Francisco. We also did some exploring in Petaluma, an old town in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. Then from mid-August to mid-September we were in Sutter Creek, an old Gold Rush town in Amador County in the Sierra Foothills about 50 miles east of Sacramento. We were petsitting for five cats, arranged through TrustedHousesitters. Every cat has a unique personality so some of the cats warmed up to us quickly and others kept their distance. We enjoyed frequent walks through the interesting and picturesque old town.

After a brief stop in Sacramento we headed east again to spend October in Raton, New Mexico, to watch a cat for friends while they were on vacation. We traveled through northern Arizona and made a stop at Ganado, a small town near the center of the Navajo Reservation. While there we visited Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, a restored trading post dating from 1878. From there we spent the night in Chinle, Arizona, just outside Canyon de Chelly National Monument. We spent much of the next day exploring Canyon de Chelly, known for its natural beauty and for some well-preserved cliff dwellings. Leaving Canyon de Chelly, we climbed up, then down, 8800 feet in the Chuska Mountains on our way to northern New Mexico. Near the end of the day we traveled past Shiprock, a volcanic feature that early settlers thought resembled a sailing ship with its sails unfurled. Shiprock is striking in part because it is accompanied on two sides by volcanic curtains that erupted through cracks in the earth’s surface. Traveling along, as we approached the town of Shiprock we came to realize that we were there on the weekend of the Northern Navajo Fair. Traffic was heavy and for several miles the highway was lined by stalls selling crafts, food, and almost anything else you could think of. It was a big deal. The next day, on our way to Raton, we stopped in Chama, New Mexico, to visit Tierra Wools, a well-known sheep fiber, wool, and weaving store. We had tried to visit them a few years ago but they were closed for the winter at that time, so we didn’t want to miss our chance this time. Their products are beautiful.

 

We arrived in Raton in early October to begin our one-month stay. We were watching Rosie, a small Manx cat with a short bobtail typical of her breed. Rosie was an independent cat but she could also be affectionate when she chose to be. She had the odd habit of wanting to be scratched and petted while she ate. We stayed in an old ranch house on a working horse ranch just outside of Raton. The lady in a nearby house took care of the horses but we saw them every day in their pens and pasture. They were beautiful quarter horses. Raton is an old town that was a thriving mining town about a century ago. Nearby mines supplied coal for the Santa Fe Railroad. The mines closed around 1950 so now the Raton economy is based on ranching and tourist travel along I-25. We had previously spent most of our time in New Mexico around Albuquerque and Santa Fe, which are heavily influenced by the Pueblo and Spanish cultures. Raton was interesting to us because it is more of a cowtown, influenced more by nearby Texas than by central New Mexico.

Our friend grew up on the CS Cattle Ranch near Cimarron, about 40 miles southwest of Raton. Her family still runs the ranch so we had the opportunity to visit the ranch and see what a large-scale cattle operation looks like. The ranch was established in 1873 so they had a big celebration last year for their 150 year anniversary.

Having been intrigued by the ranch, on another day we took a drive back out to Cimarron to check out some of the old buildings in town. We had a printed tour map that described some of the buildings. Cimmaron was thriving about a century ago but is now a rather sleepy little town.

On another day we drove out to Capulin Volcano National Monument, about 30 miles east of Raton. Capulin is one of a series of small extinct volcanoes scattered across northeastern New Mexico. It was preserved as a National Monument because it is a good example of recent volcanic activity (recent by geological standards, anyway). We drove along a road to the top and walked along the rim trail.

We left Raton in early November to return to California for a while. We took a southern route to avoid possible snowstorms in the Colorado mountains, which turned out to be a wise choice, as snow throughout the region followed just a few days after we left. We took an extra day to visit two National Monuments between Grants and Gallup in western New Mexico, El Malpais and El Morro. El Malpais roughly translates as “The Badlands” in Spanish, and it preserves several rather recent (again, by geological standards) lava flows. Farther down the road, El Morro is a large cliff or rock outcropping that has a large pond at its base. Because it was a reliable water supply it attracted inhabitants of the region as well as travelers, from the early time of the indigenous people through the time of the Spanish explorers to the later time of the settlers moving west from the East Coast. Because the sandstone is soft, people were able to carve their names and other text into the rock, hence it is known as the inscription rock. You can still see petroglyphs from the early period, Spanish and Latin inscriptions from the explorers, and names and hometowns of the American settlers. We had a light dusting of snow at El Morro, but nothing to slow us down.

When we left Borrego Springs in February 2024 we went to Sacramento for a bit so we could go to the dentist and take care of some medical appointments. While we were there we made a quick trip over to Reno to attend a lecture by two of Carrie’s favorite knitting designers, Arne and Carlos. They are from Norway and were on a North American tour. They are funny and entertaining, so even non-knitter Charlie enjoyed it. We left Sacramento for Winslow, Arizona, to spend a few days with a group of close friends. We stayed at La Posada, a beautifully renovated old Harvey House hotel next to the railroad tracks. In the days when rail travel prevailed travelers would stop at Harvey Houses all along the route. We made day trips with our friends to Walnut Canyon National Monument (Native American ruins), Meteor Crater, the Painted Desert, and Petrified Forest National Park. The hotel also has a small museum that contains the world’s largest Navajo rug. Finally, we enjoyed wonderful group dinners at the hotel restaurant and at the great little Mexican restaurant across the street, the Brown Mug (great sopaipillas!). Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

From Winslow we drove to Austin, Texas, to spend a few days visiting with Carrie’s brother’s family. Andy came down to Texas for a few days, as well as two other family members, Theo and Rachel. We rented a house in Dripping Springs that was big enough to hold us all. We enjoyed visiting with our Texas family and spending some time in downtown Austin, a big and vibrant city.

From Austin we headed northeast to Crofton, Maryland, near Annapolis, where we settled into a condo for about ten days. Carrie wanted to attend the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, one of the premier knitting and fabric festivals in the United States. The weather was rainy all weekend but we had our umbrellas and made the best of it. Fortunately, most of the vendor booths were indoors in the county fair buildings.

We took advantage of being in the DC area and made a few day trips to local attractions. Carrie wanted to see the special exhibit titled “Woven Histories” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. It featured a large and varied collection of woven artwork from all over the world.

On the way to the art gallery we drove past the United States National Arboretum which looked intriguing, so on another day we spent the afternoon in the arboretum. It was a weekday and not very crowded, and we enjoyed several hikes through the bushes and trees with springtime flowers. We arrived past peak azalea blooms, but perfect for the dogwood trees.

On another day we drove over to nearby Virginia and spent the afternoon exploring George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon. We were able to tour the main house, several workshops, and the slave quarters. It is always interesting to get a glimpse into what life was like in the past.

We left Maryland headed for Raleigh, North Carolina. Along the way we traveled through Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Shenandoah is an interesting and unique National Park because it is long and thin, about 100 miles long but only a few miles wide. It was established to feature Skyline Drive, a scenic highway along the crest of the Appalachians. We were heading to Raleigh to housesit and dog sit for friends while they went to France for a month, but when we arrived in Raleigh we learned that their trip had been cancelled. Hence, we stayed in Raleigh for just a few days, but we did have a chance to see a special exhibit on Native American art at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Like the textile exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, the NC Museum of Art Native American exhibit also melds past Navajo style with new artists’ techniques.

Since we weren’t going to be staying in Raleigh we decided to spend a couple of weeks in Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of our favorite places. Heading west, we spent part of a day in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, one of the most beautiful parts of the Appalachians. Great Smokies is the most visited National Park in the United States, but we were there on a weekday during shoulder season so the crowds weren’t too bad. On the Tennessee side we passed through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and we were somewhat horrified by the crass commercialism of all the tourist traps. We were on our way to Nashville to visit a friend who lives there. We had brunch with her at a great Southern restaurant and then we went to the Johnny Cash Museum in downtown Nashville. We’re all fans of Johnny Cash so it was fun to see the mementos of his great career. Later we walked down Broadway in downtown Nashville. It’s an amazing street. For about five blocks it is lined with music clubs, each with a live band playing, and this was midday on a weekday. At one end of the strip is the big hockey stadium, home of the Nashville Predators.

As we neared Santa Fe we took a slight detour to Las Vegas, New Mexico, to take a look at another old Harvey House, the Castaneda Hotel. It is being restored by the same people who restored La Posada in Winslow, so we wanted to see it. The Castaneda is smaller and sleepier than La Posada, so we were glad we had spent our time in Winslow. We made our way over to Santa Fe and settled into a little house in Tesuque, about six miles north of Santa Fe but way out in the country. It was a pleasant, quiet spot to spend a few weeks. While we were there we visited the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and the adjacent Santa Fe Botanical Garden. Coincidentally, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture had a textile exhibit displaying modern indigenous artists’ work which draws on centuries-old themes and patterns. Our third textile exhibit of this trip! We also enjoyed frequent walks in Santa Fe. We had spent five months in Santa Fe at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 so it was fun to revisit some of the neighborhoods that we had gotten to know so well.

In June we spent a few days in Camarillo to visit family and friends. We also spent part of a day walking around campus at UCLA, where we both went to college in the early 1970s. A lot has changed in the ensuing 50 years, but a lot is still familiar, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since we left Alberta in October 2023 we have been doing a lot of pet sitting for dogs and cats. We didn’t exactly plan it that way but that’s how it worked out. Right after Christmas we drove to Jacksonville in southern Oregon (near Medford) to spend two and a half weeks watching two big dogs, arranged through TrustedHousesitters. We had never watched big dogs before and we weren’t quite sure what to expect but it was a lot of fun. Willie is some sort of German Shepherd mix and Max is an Australian Shepherd mix. Max loved to play ball, even in the snow, and Willie loved running around barking at squirrels. The house was out in the woods on a fenced 10 acre property so they had the run of the place. Both dogs were well-behaved and affectionate, and they waited patiently while we slowly learned to respond to their communications. The town of Jacksonville was about a 10 minute drive away. It was a gold rush town in the mid-19th century but was largely abandoned with its buildings intact when the railroad bypassed the town and instead went through nearby Medford. Hence, downtown Jacksonville is full of beautifully preserved old buildings. We enjoyed several walks in the old town. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

After Oregon we returned to Tucson to once again watch Rox, the dog, and Tasha and Trill, the two cats. We have watched them several times so Rox gets very excited when we return. The cats not so much, but they’re cats.

After we left Tucson at the beginning of February we had a gap in our schedule so we decided to spend two and a half weeks in Borrego Springs, a small and isolated town in the California desert east of San Diego. Along the way we made a brief stop at the Robert J. Moody Demonstration Garden in Yuma, Arizona. Borrego Springs is one of eight international Dark Sky Communities – the first in California. We had taken a day trip to Borrego Springs a few years ago and we liked it so we decided to return. The town is surrounded by Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the largest state park in California. Our house had beautiful desert and mountain views and we enjoyed walking in the nearby neighborhoods and desert.

 

We left Alberta in October and traveled west across the Rockies on the Trans-Canada Highway into British Columbia. We passed through three Canadian National Parks – Yoho, Glacier, and Mount Revelstoke. All are beautiful, and Mount Revelstoke hosts an old ski jumping venue that was used for competitions in the first half of the 20th century. We then passed through the Okanagan Valley, BC’s principal wine region, and we crossed the international border into eastern Washington. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We made our way through Washington, Oregon, and California en route to Paso Robles to sit for one of our favorite cats, Purrkins. We were watching Purrkins last year when we were stranded when the road washed out during a big flashflood. But this time we had perfect fall weather and a relaxing visit.

After Paso Robles we traveled to Roseville, just outside Sacramento, and watched a cat named Arcy, arranged through TrustedHousesitters. Arcy is a very vocal cat and she has the loudest purr ever. It is interesting how each cat has its own personality. We then headed south to Tucson in mid-November to watch a dog and two cats that we had watched before. But on the way we took a couple of extra days to visit Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, along the Mexican border in southwest Arizona. We spent a couple of nights in the nearby town of Ajo, once a copper mining town but now a sleepy artist and tourist town after the mine shut down. We stayed in a very interesting hotel, recently converted from the old elementary school in town. Each classroom is now a hotel room and the play yard is now a courtyard with desert landscaping.

We spent Thanksgiving with Andy and Heather in Oakland. Then, in early December we were back in Paso Robles for an early Christmas celebration with close friends. While there we all visited the Cambria Christmas Market, an annual holiday event with lots of Christmas lights. We spent Christmas with family back in Camarillo.

 

Lake Louise is arguably the premier spot in the Canadian Rockies. It is very popular and almost everybody who visits Banff National Park makes their way to Lake Louise. It is a glacier-fed lake surrounded by spectacular steep mountains. Because it is glacier-fed, Lake Louise has a turquoise color due to the glacial flour (very fine particles) that the glacier forms when slowly grinding up rock. Lake Louise is about an hour drive from our house and we were able to visit several times. On our first visit we celebrated Carrie’s birthday with fancy afternoon tea at the upscale Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise Hotel. We had a table by the window with a wonderful view of the lake. There were sweet and savory treats along with excellent tea. It was a memorable birthday celebration. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

On other visits to Lake Louise we enjoyed hiking along the lakeshore. There is a trail that goes along the lakeshore for a little over a mile that takes you to the glacier end of the lake, where water flows in from the glacial melt. From the lake’s other end, Louise Creek flows out to the Bow River, making its way through Canmore and Calgary and eventually to Hudson Bay! On one visit to Lake Louise we made our way to Moraine Lake, a nearby glacial lake with equally spectacular views.

On our return from one trip to Lake Louise we made a short detour into Kootenay National Park in British Columbia to visit Marble Canyon. A short hike up the canyon passes over very narrow and steep canyon walls. At the end of the hike is a waterfall, where the glacier-fed creek tumbles down toward the valley below. Unlike Lake Louise, Marble Canyon was not crowded and we saw just a few people on our hike.

During the first week of October we took a three-day road trip through Jasper National Park and on to Edmonton, the provincial capital of Alberta. On our first day we drove northward on the Icefields Parkway, a 150 mile route connecting Lake Louise with the town of Jasper. The highway traverses the northern section of Banff National Park and then Jasper National Park, the largest park in the Canadian Rockies. The route goes along the spine of the Rockies and the scenery is spectacularly beautiful at every turn. It is billed as “one of the most beautiful journeys on the planet.” The first part of the route, in Banff National Park, traverses a series of glacier-fed lakes that flow into the Bow River. Glacial flour provides all of these lakes with a beautiful turquoise color. We made stops at Bow Lake and Peyto Lake, which is viewed from an overlook high above the lake. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We stopped for a picnic lunch on a bluff overlooking the North Saskatchewan River. This river flows out of the Rockies through Edmonton and eventually into Hudson Bay. The Bow River is one of the tributaries to the Saskatchewan River system.

After lunch we passed into Jasper National Park and traveled along the edge of the Columbia Icefield, one of the highlights of the drive. An icefield is an expanse of ice that can feed several glaciers, and the Columbia is the largest icefield in the Canadian Rockies. The Columbia Icefield Centre offers a viewing platform overlooking the Athabasca Glacier, one of the glaciers fed by the Columbia Icefield. The glacier has receded substantially over the past 150 years or so, and there are markers in the ground showing where the edge of the glacier existed during certain past years.

Farther north we took a short hike to Athabasca Falls on the Athabasca River. The waterfall is one of the scenic highlights of the Icefields Parkway drive. The Athabasca River flows northward from Jasper and eventually empties into the Arctic Ocean.

We spent the night in the town of Jasper and then made the four-hour drive to Edmonton the next morning. The drive eastward leaves the mountains rather soon and then traverses prairie land, evidence of Alberta’s role as one of the principal farming and ranching regions in Canada. Our goal in Edmonton was the West Edmonton Mall, one of the world’s largest shopping malls. But to call it a shopping mall is an understatement, as it is more of an entertainment complex. The mall contains a water park, an ice skating rink, an amusement park with a roller coaster, a hotel, and even an entire Toyota dealership including a service department. We especially enjoyed browsing through an extensive Asian grocery store. It is easy to see why folks in Edmonton would enjoy spending time in this enclosed mega-mall during the bitterly cold Alberta winters. We got our dinner that evening from an Indian restaurant in Edmonton that had butter chicken poutine on the menu. We didn’t order it, however. It seemed a little over-the-top.

Canmore, Alberta, in Canada, has been our home for about six weeks, from early September to mid October 2023. Canmore is a town of about 15,000 people just outside the boundary of Banff National Park and about 50 miles west of Calgary. Surrounded by tall, steep mountains, every direction you look is stunningly beautiful. We both agree that it is the most beautiful place we have ever visited. Our house is in a great location — about a ten minute walk from the downtown area, with many restaurants and tourist shops, and down the block from our house is the Bow River Trail. Within less than a five minute walk we can be surrounded by beautiful mountain and river scenery. We have enjoyed walks along the Bow River Trail almost every day we have been here. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

There are at least two herd of elk that wander around Canmore. We see them every few days. We have seen them along the Bow River Trail and in front yards around town, where they like to munch on the lawns. One day at dusk we saw an entire herd on the soccer field across the street from our house. They are huge, spectacular creatures and we keep our distance, as it is mating season and the bull elk can be very aggressive. In addition to the elk, Charlie spotted a black bear right on the outskirts of downtown. It was a small bear, not much bigger than a large dog, and it was minding its business, paying no attention to the people around.

The town of Banff is about a 20 minute drive to the west of Canmore, within the park boundary. We visited it a couple of times to explore the old town. There is a small but pleasant botanical garden on the grounds of the Banff National Park Administration Building.

Andy and Heather came to visit for a week in late September. When we picked them up in Calgary we spent a few hours at Studio Bell before heading up to Canmore. Studio Bell is home to the National Music Centre and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. We learned that many famous musicians were Canadian, and we caught up on some of our Canadian favorites, such as k.d. lang. We both were struck by the broad influence of Randy Bachman on Canadian rock music and rock music in general. Bachman was a founding member of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. We also discovered the Women are Persons! Monument in Olympic Park in Calgary.

Andy and Heather enjoyed their time in Alberta and they both said they would like to come back sometime and spend more time. We took several great hikes while they were here and explored lots of beautiful scenery.

One of the joys of spending early autumn in Canada is seeing the advent of fall color. When we arrived in early September everything was green, but as the weeks went on we saw more and more spectacular fall color, mostly yellow from the aspen trees.

During August we spent a couple of weeks in Sacramento to take care of some medical appointments and to switch out our summer clothes for fall and winter clothes. Then we set out for our next home in Canmore, Alberta, Canada, just outside Banff National Park. We had planned to travel through Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, but due to the huge fires in the Kelowna area of BC, the BC government was encouraging people not to travel through the area. So, we took a more easterly route. We began by driving across Nevada on U.S. Highway 50, dubbed the “Loneliest Road in America.” There are only a few very small towns on a 250 mile drive, so it is indeed lonely and isolated. It traverses the typical basin and range topography of North America’s Great Basin. Much of the desert scenery seemed unseasonably green for late summer. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

We considered going through Glacier National Park on our way to Canada but Glacier has become over-touristed and very crowded, and we know that we prefer the less-visited parks. So instead, we spent a day in Great Basin National Park (GBNP) near Ely, Nevada. This park encompasses a beautiful area of desert and mountain scenery around Wheeler Peak, elevation 13,065 feet, the second highest peak in Nevada. From Wikipedia, “The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California.” Great Basin National Park is very isolated and there were few visitors there. In the Visitor Center we mentioned to the ranger that the desert seemed unusually green and we wondered if that was an effect of Hurricane Hilary, which had passed through Nevada a couple of weeks before. But she said that the desert had been green all summer as a result of the atmospheric river dumping record rain and snowfall last winter.

A highlight of a visit to Great Basin National Park is Lehman Caves, discovered by settlers in the 1880s and developed into a tourist destination throughout the 20th century. We took a ranger-led tour of the caves.

We spent two nights in Ely, Nevada, a pleasant but very isolated small town in east-central Nevada, near the Utah state line. We stayed in a funky little hotel that had a small casino attached – no table games, just a few slot machines. That’s typical in rural Nevada, not at all like Las Vegas.

It’s a tradition of ours that we bet $21 ($3 at a time) in the Megabucks slot machine whenever we are in Nevada. Megabucks is a network of slot machines tied together all across Nevada, with a progressive jackpot of at least $10 million. Megabucks is a standard $1 slot machine, but the caveat is that a player must bet the maximum ($3) on a spin to be eligible to win the jackpot. Once the maximum bet is made and the reels are spun, landing “MEGABUCKS” symbols along the payline on each of the reels is what it takes to win the hefty prize. Our largest win was $1,800 a few years ago in Reno, but this time we won about $100. We win just enough money often enough to keep us playing. That’s their hook, right?

Ely has a very nice little railroad museum and we spent a morning looking around. It is very informal and they let you go into the working shop where workmen are performing maintenance on steam locomotives. A cat named Dirt lived in the shop for 15 years until his death in January 2023. The museum is a relic of the Nevada Northern Railway which served the Ely area throughout most of the 20th century when there was a large copper mine and smelter there.

From Ely we traveled through Utah, Idaho, and Montana to reach the Canadian border. We made a brief stop in Butte, Montana, an old copper mining city, to view a huge open pit mine that operated in the mid-20th century. Since it closed it has filled with water that has seeped in, creating an environmental hazard that is continually addressed due to the leached minerals. Just outside Butte we saw Our Lady of the Rockies, a 90-foot statue built in the likeness of Mary, the mother of Jesus, that sits atop the Continental Divide. Just before we crossed the Canadian border we stopped at a rest area for lunch and we spied a little bat in the ceiling of our shelter, taking his daily nap. Before heading up to Canmore we spent a day in Calgary, the major city in southern Alberta. Calgary is a pleasant city, with parks and walkways along the Bow River, which flows down from the Rockies. They even have a botanical garden inside a downtown shopping mall, undoubtedly a welcome respite for folks during the long, cold Canadian winters.

After our day in Calgary we headed toward the mountains to check into our house in Canmore, our home for the next six weeks. We’ll have more on Canmore and Banff in subsequent blog posts.

After almost three months in the South we left North Carolina in late July to return to California. We took our time because there were people and things that we wanted to see along the way. We first headed to Des Moines, Iowa, to visit family there. Our route took us through West Virginia, a beautiful mountainous state, and we had some of the best Thai food of our lives in Charleston, the state capital. One of the fun aspects of travel is finding little gems in unexpected places. The next day we spent a couple of hours in Kettering and Dayton, Ohio, where Carrie lived in the late 1950s and early 1960s before her family moved to California in 1964. We found the houses where she lived, now surrounded by tall trees that were seedlings when she was a girl. In Des Moines we visited the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, which has an indoor conservatory that is especially popular on cold winter days. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

When we left Des Moines we spent an afternoon in Hamilton, Missouri, a visit that Carrie has been anticipating for a long time. Hamilton is a small town (population 1,690) about sixty miles northeast of Kansas City, but it is remarkable because it has been transformed into a quilter’s tourist mecca. Downtown, only about three blocks long, has been taken over by the Missouri Star Quilt Company. There are a dozen fabric shops downtown, all owned by Missouri Star, and each shop has a different theme, such as batik or seasonal holiday fabrics. Missouri Star has completely revived the economy in Hamilton and the surrounding area since its founding fifteen years ago. Hamilton is also the hometown of J.C. Penney. The small house where he grew up is preserved just off the main street downtown.

We spent a day in Kansas City so we could visit the National WWI Museum and Memorial, billed as the world’s most comprehensive WWI collection. We both learned a great deal about the war, the events in Europe that led up to it, and the later events that led to US involvement in 1917. But before visiting the museum we had lunch at Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque, arguably the most famous barbeque restaurant in the United States and a key player in the Kansas City-style barbeque tradition. There are photos on the wall of visiting dignitaries such as Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and John McCain. The food was great and the place was already crowded at 11 AM on a Sunday, likely due to a Royals baseball game that afternoon.

We drove across Kansas the next day and spent the next night in Colby, Kansas, a small town in the western part of the state, where we had another culinary surprise – a really great taco truck. Who knew you could get great tacos in Kansas? The next day presented us with a new adventure, the first in our travels – a flat tire! We were turning into a gas station in Aurora, Colorado, and hit a horrendous pothole, which blew out the sidewall of the left front tire. Fortunately there was a tire store just across the parking lot so we were back on the road with a new tire in about two hours. But to make the story weird, just ten days later in Fresno we hit another pothole and blew out the sidewall of the same tire. In almost 150,000 miles of driving we had never had a flat tire and now we had two in ten days. The guy in the tire store in Fresno told Charlie that if it happens again he should buy a lottery ticket.

The next day in Colorado we spent the morning in Colorado National Monument, just outside Grand Junction in western Colorado. We enjoyed a morning hike among the beautiful red cliffs, before the day got too hot to enjoy.

The next morning we spent some time at Cedar Breaks National Monument in southern Utah. That day happened to be our 49th wedding anniversary, and we had visited Cedar Breaks on our honeymoon, along with Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks.

When we returned to California we visited our friends near Paso Robles, where our car had been stranded by a flash flood last winter. We retrieved a few of our belongings that still remained, and we experienced a small earthquake while we were there. The San Andreas Fault is about fifty miles to the east, and it continues to shift every now and then.

 

 

We were in the American South from mid-May through late July. We spent about a month and a half in Raleigh, North Carolina, and another month around Atlanta, Georgia. Our friends in Raleigh took two vacations while we were there, so we watched their dog, Kip, and their house while they were gone. During their second vacation we also watched their daughter’s dog, Reggie. Kip is a little two year-old Havanese and he loves to play. Reggie, on the other hand, is a fourteen year-old pit bull mix and he loves to sleep most of the time, as old men are prone to do. Click on the first photo in each block to view larger images in a slideshow.

Our friends live in a beautiful section of Raleigh called Five Points. It is about two miles north of downtown and many of the houses were built a century ago. We enjoyed frequent walks through the neighborhood to admire the beautiful houses and gardens. As spring turned to summer, however, we often curtailed our walks due to the oppressive heat and humidity. Believe it or not, the large skeleton pictured below was also a yard staple on our walks in Roseville, CA.

One of our favorite places in Raleigh was the North Carolina State Farmers Market. It is a huge permanent open-air market with roofs to keep out the sun and rain. We went there several times to stock up on fresh produce. We especially enjoyed the beautiful, tasty, abundant tomatoes in the summertime.

We also spent a month around Atlanta. Both of Charlie’s parents were from Atlanta so he still has lots of extended family there. We enjoyed many family visits while we were there. We rented a townhome in Smyrna, a northwest suburb, and we enjoyed walks on nearby trails. The trailhead for the Silver Comet Trail was only about a mile from our house, so we visited it frequently. It is an old railbed that has been paved and repurposed as a bicycle and pedestrian trail. It is well-used throughout the week, but especially on the weekends. A bit farther away was the Cochran Shoals Trail, part of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. The trail goes right along the banks of the river and is very scenic. We also enjoyed walking in nearby Heritage Park, which has several wooden walkways to get over the marshy areas in the forest.

A different sort of trail that we also enjoyed was the Atlanta Beltline Trail. Another repurposed railbed, it goes through the older urban heart of Atlanta. In one interesting spot it goes right by the old Sears Roebuck warehouse and the old Ford Factory, which have been repurposed as retail, residential, and business centers. Many new condominium buildings have sprung up near the Beltline Trail.

Charlie’s dad grew up in a section of Atlanta called Inman Park. About two miles east of downtown, it was Atlanta’s first suburb when started in the 1880s, but now it is squarely in the urban core. Charlie would visit his grandmother there when he was a kid on trips to Atlanta in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time Inman Park had become somewhat run down and many of the grand old houses had been subdivided into apartments. In the decades since then the neighborhood has been gentrified, and its glorious old mansions have become some of the most desirable residences in Atlanta. We visited Inman Park several times just to walk around and enjoy the neighborhood. On one occasion we also visited the historic old Oakland Cemetery and found Charlie’s grandfather’s grave.

One day we visited the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park. We had been there on a previous visit to Atlanta but we wanted to see what’s new. The park contains interesting historical exhibits on Dr. King’s life and on the Civil Rights movement more generally. It is located in the neighborhood where he grew up and it includes the house where he was raised and the old Ebenezer Baptist Church where he preached. The park is well worth a visit if you are in Atlanta.

One day we went to visit Charlie’s cousin in Pine Mountain, Georgia, near Columbus and directly adjacent to Callaway Gardens. We spent part of the day in the Gardens and got to see the Butterfly Center, Discovery Center, and Memorial Chapel, along with lots of beautiful forest scenery. And just as in Austin, Texas, there was a Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Garden.