A week later

Before lunch in Cottonwood we visited with friends that we used to teach with while at Prairie High School. Next stop was the liquor store for some White Christmas which is the best in Tom and Jerry's or egg nog and Washington doesn't carry it. We drove by the house and snapped a photo. It looks good all repainted and cared for. Seven joined us for lunch. It was great to see all of these friends once again.

We made a rather large cheese haul at Ferdinands Creamery on the WSU campus. Of course, you can't stop without getting ice cream too!

Don won the bet as we stayed in Moses Lake. There was a beautiful sunset lasting from Ritzville to ML. A fitting end to our trip. We got an early start Saturday morning and were home by 10. Home looked awfully good! Had to take a picture of the mail pile!!

We saw so many things and did so much that it will take awhile to process it all. Thank goodness that I have this blog to look at and an expense account that tells where we were each night. If you are going to do any traveling, write things down as you won't remember where you saw something.

We put 11,000 miles on the car which is about a years worth. While we enjoyed the trip and all that we did, it got a little long. I would go back to New England again, but maybe for shorter periods of time. There are parts of every state that we didn't see. For the most part, the large cities weren't explored.

We saw so many family and friends along the way that enriched the travel and gave us a break from motels. We thank you all for your hospitality.

For now, I will work on captioning the pictures and reliving the memories. Thank you for reading the blog. Knowing that people were waiting to see what we were doing, kept me writing.

And more visiting

While in SLC, Don and Rick went for a long hike. I spent the day with Rick's former wife. We had a great time visiting and going to quilt shops. Glad that it worked to reconnect.
On our way to Twin Falls, we stopped at Promotory Point where they drove the golden spike when the transcontinnetal railroad was complete. You can still see the grades that were made on the hillside.
Close to that is Thiakole where they make rocket fuel and the booster rockets. Out in front of the buildings is a good sized display of rocket and missles. They have the booster from the space shuttle. According to the info to read, when those boosters are recovered they come to this facility to be refurbished for the next launch. Quite interesting--I didn't know it was there.
We met Maggie for dinner then opted to stay at her house. Enjoyed catching up. She is one of those people that I can visit with and it as if no time has passed since the last visit.
Today we drove to Grangeville for the night. Don went for a run and I met with Susie who I worked with during our 4-H years. We chatted up a storm!!
Tomorrow we are having lunch with Prairie friends then on to Ferdinands for a large cheese order. I say we will go straight home; Don says we will go part way. Any bets?

Visiting along the way

We spent the weekend with our friends Keith and Arleen and their son, Kevin. We went to college with Keith and have enjoyed his pottery for many years. They moved to Cheyenne about 4 years ago. Arleen is a nurse and now doing the administrative side. They have purchased land just out of town, planted many, many trees and are planning to build. We got in on pumpkin carving and the excitment of young people trick or treating. It was a great visit and a welcome respite from travel. You can't have to many friends, wish these guys didn't live so far away.
Today we drove to Salt Lake City--now there is an expanse of mostly nothingness along Interstate 80. We are staying with Rick for two nights before we continue homeward.

Return to the Past

We drove to the center of Kansas to the little community of Otis where Don and I began our teaching careers. We stopped at our house and visited with the man that lives there now. Except for having the porch rebuilt, it looks much the same as it did 33 years ago when we left there.
School was still in session so we just drove by. I regret that as we learned later, there are people working there that we knew. However, it was Don's building and his call.
In the afternoon, we visited a couple that taught with us from 1972-77. We had a wonderful time catching up. As they live in the area, they know so many of our former students and filled us with success stories. After having dinner with them we drove on to a motel.
Today we went to a museum then drove south of the freeway to Monument Rocks which is a rock formation that sits on the flat prairie. It was formed when this was ocean. About 8 miles of the road was dirt so the car is filthy. Found a quilt shop where we had lunch.
Tonight we are in Golden, Colorado where we had dinner with our niece, Mercedes, and her boyfriend, Kellen. Dinner was very good and adding to the fun was the closed off street for the young trick or treaters.
We have about 1250 miles to go until we are home. The Rocky Mountains were a welcome site as we approached Denver this afternoon.

Moving West

As we left Cumberland, WVA we drove through the mountains and one road proved to be quite the switchback laden road. When I saw the sign that I posted for the third time, a picture had to be taken!
We spent Monday night with Don's cousin, Rob, and his wife Theresa just out of Columbus, OH. Rob's sister lives near there so we got to visit her also. It is always good to catch up with family.
Our next stop was in Cincinnati where Don's Hoffmann grandparents used to live. We wanted a picture of their house and found it without any trouble thanks to Garmin. Took the necessary pictures and we are sitting there figuring out how to get to the cemetery which was the next stop we heard sirens going off. We asked a person walking by what they were for and were told "tornado warning." Great. We turned on the radio, but of course don't know where any of the counties are that they are talking about. It is windy and quite warm. We decide to drive to the cemetery and see if we can find his grandparents and great grandparents. Although we have the lot numbers we quickly discover that we need more information.
We go to the office and while we are there, the heavens open. It is blowing like crazy and the rain is coming down monsoon fashion. We got all the information we needed from the very helpful staff and were able to wait out the worst of the rain. Armed with maps and directions we went looking in three different lots. We found all of the graves and photographed them.
Last night's stay was in Fishers, Indiana which is just north of Indianapolis with Kevin and Camille Talbot. It was nice to relax on their screened porch before home cooked food and Boise State football. Catching up with Camille and getting to know her family was great.
They gave us many options of things to do in Indianapolis, but we chose to get on the road. Today we used two tanks of gas and went through Illinois and Missouri and ended or day in Lawrence, KS. Our only stop really was in Effingham, IL for the requested Black and Blue--its a wine. It was a long, boring day.
Hoping for a little more fun tomorrow as we revisit Otis, Kansas where we lived and taught for 5 years. I was looking up former students in the white pages and they are 50-51--my how time closes that age difference gap!

The Last Two Days

The title will enable me to get up to date and it is in a sense the last two days. We are far from home, but tomorrow we begin the journey back to Lake Stevens and because we are visiting along the way, it is somewhat scheduled. It has been a great adventure and we are glad that we chose to do this. At the same time, we are ready to return to our real lives.
Now to the adventures of the last two days. Yesterday we drove through the Shenandoah Valley then went to the top of the ridge and drove through the National Park. Great views--fall color was in many places gone. We stopped at Luray Caverns and had an amazing walk through the caves.
Today we drove north to Harper's Ferry. Harper's Ferry is at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomoc Rivers. We knew about John Brown, but much more happened there. During the Civil War, it changed hands 7 times. It was hard to keep track of who was in charge. Meriwether Lewis built a boat and gathered all the supplies for the expedition in Harper's Ferry. When they were all assembled, they were transported to Pittsburg to the Ohio River. I always assumed that he assembled the supplies in St. Louis, but that was not the case.
A little further north is Antietam which we missed on the way south. We and a quite large group met with a ranger and we did a driving tour of the battle field. We looked like a funeral procession. We got a very good sense of the battle as it unfolded through the day in September, 1862. I felt like I was in an intense history class. Again the toll of human life is staggering. The photo is the Burnside bridge. Imagine 700 Union soldiers trying to get over the bridge with the Confederates at the top of the hill shooting at them. Several hours later, they did get across and drive the Conferates off of the knoll.
All three battlefields that we visited look pretty much like they did when the battles were fought. The park service has done extensive research to make them authentic down to the placement of the cannons. Speaking of cannons, we learned today that they had quite a long range.
If anyone reading this thinks they might like to visit Civil War history, we have quite a supply of literature to share. Next year marks 150 years since the beginning of the war and all the states involved are planning special events to honor this time in history.

Monticello

Monticello was the fifth president's home that we have visited. This place is amazing in its design and use of space. We toured the gardens. They maintain a 1000 foot garden space for vegetables. Instead of feeding the family and slaves, now the produce goes to the visitor's center restaurant and to the employees. The views from this mountaintop are beautiful. When Jefferson lived there, no big trees blocked the views as they do now. He used to take his spy glass out on the porch and watch them building the University of Virginia down in the valley. You can see the dome of UVA in the distance.
It is hard to tell from the photo, but coming off each end of the house are large open porches. They come out probably about 100 feet then turn and run straigt back for hundreds of feet. Under this "porch" was hidden the daily business of the house. The two sides are connected by this same underground passage under the house. There is a wash room, an ice house, the kitchen, stables for guest horses, and the all important beer cellar and wine cellar. The wine cellar had a dumb waiter to the dining room for wine delivery during a meal. We noticed that the kitchen was much more modern than Washington's was--a few years newer, but much of Jefferson's ideas came from his time in France.
He is buried on the grounds and his descendents continue to use the cemetery. Jefferson was deeply in debt when he died so the furnishings of the house and the slaves were sold to pay off his debts. Over time the house furnishings have come back. He did free the four Hemming children that are believed to be his. Many of his slaves were taught skills by the white workers that he had in the building process. When he left the presidency he spent the last 17 years of his life at Monticello, never leaving the state and rarely leaving the mountaintop.