Road Trip 2007

taken from the Hyde St. Pier

2007-10-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

Looking down Geary Street from Powell St.

2007-10-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

Grand Hyatt Hotel and downtown skyline from the outside elevator at the Westin Hotel

2007-10-21T16:03:00.000-07:00

Coit Tower and the Bay from the outside elevator at the Westin Hotel

2007-10-21T16:01:00.000-07:00

The old Sir Francis Drake Hotel and Harry Denton's Starlight room at the top

2007-10-21T15:58:00.000-07:00

Going UP !!! Taken from the outside elevator at the Westin Hotel

2007-10-21T15:57:00.000-07:00

Post Street and Powell Street at Union Square......yes, the garbage runs in SF on Sunday!

2007-10-21T15:55:00.000-07:00

Post Street between Powell and Stockton at Union Square

2007-10-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

Stockton Street at Union Square

2007-10-21T15:50:00.000-07:00

Top of Statue at Union Square FROM the Cheesecake Factory Rooftop

2007-10-21T15:47:00.000-07:00

Jonathon Livingston looking for a handout......he was actually outside the glass partition

2007-10-21T15:44:00.000-07:00

Saks and Tiffany's from the Cheesecake Factory Rooftop

2007-10-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

Happy Anniversary !!!

2007-10-21T15:37:00.000-07:00

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary !!!
We had a great brunch at the Cheesecake Factory on the rooftop of Macy's. We ate outside of course so I could get these great pics! When we finished our meal, we walked over to the Westin Hotel and took a ride on the outside elevator that I enjoy so much. Of course I got some more great pics there!!
I think I have figured out a new way to get pics on this blog so I will put a bunch on that we took yesterday and today.

The Westin Hotel from the Cheesecake Factory

2007-10-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

Beautiful Saturday Afternoon at Aquatic Park

2007-10-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

I guess after our long road trip, we aren't through feeling like tourists yet, so this afternoon we took the 19 muni down to Aquatic Park (affectionately known as The Wall) and took a few pictures. We wandered out on the Hyde Street Pier and got free tickets to go on all the ships with our Senior Lifetime Pass that we bought when we were at Yellowstone! Sometimes it pays to be old!

WE ARE HOME !!!!

2007-10-09T12:57:00.001-07:00

We are at last home again in our little apartment in our beautiful city of San Francisco. We arrived yesterday afternoon and just finished the unpacking this morning! It was an incredible amount of "stuff" that we had. Both of us packed about 3 or 4 times as many clothes as we actually needed.

Our sweet Penny at Avis took care of us so well and expected us in with the car today since she had been reading our blog! I guess we killed the car for Avis. We put so many miles on the car that they are not able to use it anymore for a rental. Sorry, Avis! It was a great car though and it performed perfectly for us. We changed the oil in Rochester, Minnesota and Penny made sure we got credit for it off our bill.

Since we went to bed so early last night, be both were up and wide awake at 5:00 this morning! I did a grocery order first thing so was able to get it delivered this afternoon. Now we will have some food in the house again!

I went to the post office today to pick up the mail. We have had it on hold. They had to give me one of those plastic tote bins to carry it home in. It's really odd to see one whole month's mail all at once!

Thanks to all who have sent welcome home messages, we really appreciate it very much. I may keep this blog going from time to time, so check back occasionally for updates on the Stevenson's!

On October 26th we are leaving for our next adventure. We are going to Nashville and Memphis with Kevin, Barbi and Mom. Can't wait for that, it should be a lot of fun. I can't believe I really get to see the inside of Graceland after all these years!

Our love to all
Wayne and Colleen

Homeward Bound !!!

2007-10-07T05:48:00.000-07:00

Good morning from Provo Utah. We are in a beautiful Marriott room (I LOVE their beds) and we pampered ourselves last night and had room service. We had the greatest meal and watched the baseball playoffs.

We are planning for today to get to Winnemucca and then home tomorrow (Monday). We are both a bit tired and ready to be home. It has been an incredible journey for us. We have met lots of really wonderful people, seen some fantastic scenery, dispelled some of our own prejudices and taken some really great pictures.

The final tally of the numbers will be:
34 days on the road
Over 7000 miles driven
Visited 18 states
Entered all 4 time zones
Stayed in 24 different hotels/motels

Thanks to everyone who has been with us on this journey, it was fun knowing you were all reading and following us along. This has certainly been a dream come true. We are so happy that we made the decision to take this trip. We are also very thankful for just so many things that made this trip so enjoyable. We had absolutely no trouble of any kind, good weather 98% of the time, met lots of great people, had no problems finding rooms, restaurants, etc. The whole thing was just seamless and so very incredible.

It is amazing to us that two people can spend so much time in a car on the road and not encounter any problems or troubles. We are very thankful for that.

Really looking forward to smelling that concrete and seeing our beautiful City tomorrow. We miss our little apartment. It's going to be nice to be able to settle in for the night without having to unload 8-10 pieces of baggage onto the cart and into our room!

This blog has been so much fun doing, I think I will keep it going for a while so ......stay tuned.

Much love to all
Wayne and Colleen

Yes, It's True, We are in VAIL, COLORADO

2007-10-06T05:04:00.000-07:00

Good morning from the beautiful Vail Colorado. Yes, they let us stay here, can you believe it?! Two old, out of shape, tired people like us and they actually let us get a room here. We even went to a great Italian restaurant last night and had a very nice meal. Of course, we ate at about 4:00 because we had not had lunch yet and were very hungry. Being that early, we were the only ones in the place, but they served us and were very nice anyway!

After leaving Wichita yesterday, we drove to Dodge City Kansas hoping to see some historical places and things. We of course looked for Matt and Miss Kitty but they were nowhere to be found. As a matter of fact, nothing was to be found, nothing historical anyway. We located a place to eat lunch called Montana Mike's which was just across the parking lot from a big sign that said "Boot Hill". I figured we were close to the history we were looking for. Wrong! After having a great lunch, we went across to the building near the Boot Hill sign and discovered only a big tourist trap kind of place. You pay an entrance fee, go into a room to see a video, then exit the back of the room to the "western street" (which we could see from the parking lot). It looked like a bunch of very small Hollywood set buildings lined up with old paint. Behind the buildings was supposed to be a "part of Boot Hill" in the corner at the top of the hill. I asked the girl at the counter in the gift shop if the grave markers were there to see and she said the original ones were gone and "we have put replicas there"........pass! We bought a t-shirt that said "Get out of Dodge" and then did just that!

Driving through western Kansas is a beefy experience to say the least! We saw one feed lot after another with the small rolling hills just covered with pens and thousands and thousands of head of cattle. More cattle than we have ever seen before! When we arrived in Garden City Kansas (which by the way has absolutely nothing to do with anything resembling a garden or anything green!) to spend the night, the lady at the hotel desk told us there are 2.1 million head of cattle in the surrounding area! I think we saw at least half of them ourselves!

We left Garden City Kansas and headed for Denver. Along the way we talked about whether or not to go back to Yellowstone as we had originally planned to do, or just head home. We decided our being homesick was growing each day so we would not return to Yellowstone this time and instead we would head home. We miss the smell of concrete in our City!

So Wayne found a different route to take which brought us here to Vail Colorado and we are very happy we took this way. The Rocky Mountains are absolutely breathtaking. We drove through Denver without stopping and was thrilled to see the beautiful mountains after so long in Western Kansas and the flat hot dry territory we had been through.

We arrived in Vail and immediately I felt the higher elevation. Just two or three steps and I am out of breath! Depending on where you are in the valley or on the slopes, you are from 8000 to 11,000 feet up. It is beautiful and I took many many pictures of course. I will put the pictures up here tomorrow since we are in a bit of a hurry to get started this morning. We just heard there was 1-3 inches of snow expected in Salt Lake City today and that is our next stop so we aren't happy about that!

We are definitely getting excited to be back home. We are getting a bit tired. We have seen 18 states, traveled over 7000 miles by the time we arrive back in San Francisco, and have had an absolutely magical and wonderful time on this road trip. But now it's time to decompress, and be back home in our little apartment in San Francisco and be ready for our next big adventure with Kevin Barbi and Mom the end of this month. We will be going to Nashville and Memphis to see Graceland. For any of you who know me well, you know how big a thrill this will be for me to see Elvis' home.

So, that's it for today as we are going to get packed up and get back on the road again and make our way back home.

By the way, our license plate game is now only missing THREE plates. We saw Delaware actually as we were in some small town in Western Kansas, I don't remember the name right now. So that only leaves Rhode Island and Connecticut and Hawaii. We have seen 47 different license plates on this trip! Fun, huh!

Love to all, time to pack up
Wayne and Colleen

Wichita Kansas via El Dorado

2007-10-04T04:52:00.001-07:00

Good morning from Wichita Kansas. First, I need to correct a couple things from the last post. That "head cold" turned into a trip to a small community hospital in Fulton Missouri called Callaway Hospital. Everyone needs to write the name of this medication down: Azithromycin
Ask your doctor about it the next time you get a respiratory issue. They gave me a shot of the "A" drug and a packette containing 6 pills. You take two the first day and one a day for 4 days after. After only the shot and the first two pills, I felt tremendously better. This stuff is great!

Leaving Kingdom City/Fulton Missouri, we drove to Emporia Kansas. It was the first day we had any rain while driving. It rained almost all the way. We decided to stay in Emporia, which is real close to Wayne's hometown of El Dorado.

The next morning we drove into El Dorado and had a magical day for Wayne. He was telling me stories and relating memories all day. We first went to 1450 North Topeka Road where Grandad Watson the dentist lived. We got some pictures of the house, not so well kept of course as when Grandad and Grandma lived there, but still a stately looking house.

While we were driving slowly and clearly looking "touristy", a guy pulled up and stopped in the road just ahead of us. Out came Mr. Robert Wood. He said we looked like we were lost and he wanted to help. We were afraid we had looked suspicious and Mr. Wood wanted to check us out. He was the nicest man. Wayne told him the story and he shared some facts about the area as he knew it. We asked him where was a good place to have breakfast and with his toothless grin he said "True Lies"......of course Wayne asked him to repeat it a couple times before we could understand it. Seems that True Lies is a bar but according to Mr. Wood, serves great food. Ok, we're game. It's 9:00 in El Dorado Kansas and neither of us have had any alcohol for 7 years now, but we will go to a bar for breakfast!!!! Turns out it was a great decision. Our new friend Robert not only gave us directions, he said to follow him and he drove us right there. He parked, we thought he was going in for a bite to eat too, but after getting us inside and directing Wayne to the men's room (urinals on the left, stalls on the right side of the room), he said his goodbyes and left! He only went inside to help us get started with our breakfast experience! Coming back from the "left bathroom", Wayne tells me about a sign hanging on the wall...."if you need to take a crap, use the North bathroom"...........those were the words, with apologies for the graphics here.
Our friend Robert was right, the best biscuits and gravy you could ever ask for and the price was certainly right. I noticed the ladies were wearing t-shirts from the business, so I asked what I had to do to get one of the t shirts and she said $10 will do! So we walked out of "True Lies" with a great breakfast, 2 t-shirts, a $10 tip for the lady who went through the closet looking for our shirts and the whole charge was $40.27!!! How cool is that?! The breakfast alone at home would have been that much.
Off we go to other landmarks for Wayne such as the two houses on First street where Wayne's grandparents and his mom lived before moving to the big house on Topeka St. and his Aunt Edith and Uncle Edgar lived after moving from the Templeton farm outside of town. We located the hospital where Wayne was born, the church where his parent's were married and got pictures of both. We gave our GPS lady the address of Aunt Bess. She got us there perfectly and we rang the bell. Wayne was delighted to see Aunt Bess answer the door, he recognized her immediately. She wasn't sure who he was of course but when he told her a smile came instantly. She invited us in to her beautiful home where she lives with her sister Dot. A home care nurse was just completing her daily check of the sisters and made her exit. Not long after that the guy from meals on wheels brought their noon meal which both ladies informed us was "probably not very good anyway"......we were concerned that they wanted to talk and not eat. We didn't want their meal to get cold, but that didn't seem to bother them. Aunt Bess took us on a tour through the house and showed us the bedroom that Wayne and Jim stayed in when they visited long ago. She and Wayne reminisced about lots of past history, including the time Wayne tromped around in the tall grass at the farm and got a bad infestation of chiggers! She said that was quite the talk of the family for a long time. She remembered how Wayne would come up to the big house at the farm and play Monopoly with her girls when they were all children. She explained that the farm is now owned by the Taylors and we should go out there and they would be happy to show us around.

Aunt Bess is quite an accomplished artist and has lots of her paintings hanging in her home. She asked Wayne to select one that he would like to have. She took it right down off the wall and gave it to him! I told her it would have a place of honor in our home.

After saying our goodbyes to Bess and Dot, we drove out to the old Templeton farm. Wayne remembered the old days as we drove down the long gravel driveway to the main house. He pointed out where Edit and Edgar's house was before it burned down. The main house, John and Bess' house sat stately and beautiful after all these years. Wayne rang the doorbell but got no answer. We pulled down away from the house a bit and Wayne got out and walked down to the site where the other house used to be. I stayed behind and noticed a gentleman coming from the house. Mr. Taylor apologized and said he was upstairs in the bathroom and couldn't get down to the door before we walked away! He was delighted to see us and began to tell Wayne all about the farm today. Mr. Taylor is 87 years old and he and his wife still live there on the farm. Two of their 6 sons work with them on the farm. Mrs. Taylor came back home after a few minutes and we all had a very nice chat. They invited us inside and Wayne was just amazed, it was so much fun for me to see all the excitement in his eyes and see him reminisce with everyone about his childhood.
We got lots of pictures of course and then left the farm to continue our day and went to a small town called Burns just up the road a ways. Grandad and Grandma are buried in Burns. We located the cemetary and walked through, looking for the Watson markers. We did find them and Wayne was able to say hello once again to his grandparents.
All in all, it was a very wonderful day for Wayne and brought back so many warm and wonderful memories of his family and his early years of coming to Kansas during the summers.
We also located the Freeland farm, some family friends. Wayne remembered many visits to that farm as well.
After leaving the area, we drove to Wichita and found a nice Clarion to stay. We asked about the laundry facilities since we were to the point where we HAD to wash some clothes. We had been putting it off for days and now had to do it. The girl at the desk said there was no detergent and they were out. The only place closeby was a WalMart, we really didn't want to do that. A nice young man came by and said he had some in his car! When he went to get it, I asked who he was. The girls said "our general manager"......wow, the boss came walking back in with liquid Tide and said to use what we needed and leave it at the desk! How sweet are these people in the midwest. I'm telling you, things have just been falling into place for us like that.

Anyway, we are off today with clean clothes and fond memories remembered in El Dorado. We are headed for Dodge City and then up to Denver. We will make final decisions then on the final leg of our trip and our return home. We are both getting homesick and ready to get back.

When I started this today, I said I had a couple things to correct. Well, the second one is that we have now been in 17 states in total, not 15 as I said yesterday.

Love to all
Wayne and Colleen

4 States in ONE day.........Whew!

2007-10-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

Hello again bloggers......yes, yes, I know, I have been a bit lax of late. The truth is we pulled into Frankfort Kentucky and I proceeded to get a bit of a head cold. We needed a "down day" anyway, so we just stayed an extra day and did lots of sleeping. I sneezed and coughed and sneezed and took pills and slept and slept some more. I guess it worked, because today I feel much better.

So, here we are in (of all places) Kingdom City Missouri. No, I haven't seen anyone in long white robes yet, but I will let you know if I do. How did we get here, you ask? Well, we went West on I-64 as suggested to us by someone we met on the train in Cass. We stopped off in Louisville, KY to see Churchill Downs where they run the Kentucky Derby. Boy what a place that was! Neither of us knew it was sooooo big. Then we continued westbound and went through Indiana and Illinois again. Crossing the Mississippi into St. Louis, we saw the gorgeous big Archway. What a sight that is. We also found Busch Stadium where the Cardinals play baseball. We saw the football stadium, but I forgot the name already. What a big place St. Louis is. Wow, it is huge. Some road construction didn't help the already confusing way of getting around. Once again our little lady inside the GPS to the rescue!! She has saved our bacon almost everyday during this road trip.

Wayne really outdid himself today. Since I wasn't feeling my best, he drove all the way today, 420 miles! He's pooped tonight but understandably so.

We also crossed back into the Central time zone from the Eastern time zone. It gets a bit confusing sometimes to keep track of the time, but it really isn't an issue. We stop driving when we get tired, we eat when we get hungry and we sleep until we feel like getting up. So, time really isn't an issue, but I still like to know what time it is! Does all that make any sense?

We will see Kansas City tomorrow. I'm goin' to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come...........well, I digress.

We are heading for El Dorado where Wayne's family is from and where he spent lots of summers as a young whipersnapper. I guess there is still an aunt Bess there who we will stop and see. She is 96, how cool is that?! We are also going to go to the farm where the young Stevenson boys toiled their teenage summers.

I guess this darn head cold is what you would call our first glitch. It's not going to amount to anything, I already feel much better than yesterday.

Note to MOM: Don't worry about me, I'M FINE, I promise! Wayne got me all the meds I need for cough, etc and I'm doing fine.

As of now, we have been in 15 different states and driven over 5100 miles. We are only missing 4 license plates now. We still need Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii and Rhode Island. We have seen all 46 others! Isn't that incredible?!!

Note to Richard: Happy Birthday! Hope you enjoyed your long birthday celebration.

That's it for now lovely people. I will get some pictures for you now and then get some rest for tomorrow. This road trip has been phenominal.

We got up in Kentucky this morning, drove through Illinois and Indiana and tonight we are going to bed in Missouri..........I love our road trip!!!

Love to all
Wayne and Colleen

Cass West Virginia Scenic Railroad.........ALL ABOARD !!!

2007-09-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

Hey Y'All.......(getting into the West Virginia vernacular here)
We have had another experience not to be believed. Although we have been without a cell phone signal and a very weak and sometimes nonexistent internet signal, we didn't miss either one while in this part of West Virginia. First let me say, the state of West Virginia is BEAUTIFUL ! There are such quaint things here. The hills are carpeted with beautiful trees which are now changing into the fall colors. Of course the best part of West Virginia, if you ask Wayne, is the little town of Cass. In Cass is the scenic railroad that takes you on a 4 1/2 hour trip up to the top of the hill to a place called (are you ready for this?) Bald Knob. I'm not lying!
On the way up and back, there is a nice gentleman that almost constantly speaks about all the history and scenic points of interest along the way. Of course the best part of the whole experience is old number 11, which is a Shay Locomotive that powers the 4 car train up and back. The Shay belches such smoke and steam that it's not to be believed. (and probably would be banned in California because of the whole polution thing) The whistle blows and even the hearts of non railroad types such as myself begin to flutter and miss a beat here and there. It harkens of earlier times when the lumber workers slaved long day in and long day out for $1.75 per day and 4 hearty meals. The work was incredible. The Shay was incredible. It was an incredible time.
We went back this morning and almost emptied out the gift shop, being sure to have one of everything that said "Cass" or "Shay" on it! We took some more pictures and then it happened. I was in the giftshop and the door blew open and Wayne rushed in and asked with such a gleam in his eye as I have not often seen, "Guess where I have just been?"....at the same time, showing me his hands which are now black. "I actually was up in the cab of the Shay"...........OMG and I didn't get a picture!!!
So, off we went back out to the Shay which was about to depart for the days ride up the hill once more. Wayne called up to the engineer, asking if he could once again climb up into the cab so I could get some pics. "Sure, come on up" the engineer said. "In fact, get over here into the seat"........so I ran around to the other side of the locomotive and there he sat, my husband with the biggest grin I have ever seen on his face! Remember your first trip to Disneyland? Multiply that excitement a few hundred times and that is what was pulsing through his heart at that moment. I snapped a few pictures, not wanting that moment to pass. He was so excited.
After getting a few more pictures of the town that we didn't get yesterday, we left Cass for the last time and headed out on the road again.
We actually stopped somewhere a few minutes down the road at a Yard Sale one old guy was having. It looked interesting, so we just stopped. We bought some old medicine bottles from him. It was really fun!
We didn't get too much farther down the road before we were both just pooped. We had intended to make it to Charleston West Virginia tonight, but made it only as far as Beckley West Virginia. I think it's about another hour to Charleston, the capital city of WV.
Not sure where we will go tomorrow, but I know it will be exciting.
So many things have been so wonderful on this trip, we are so very grateful and thankful that our trip has been so wonderful.
We are heading west now with only one thought in mind. We want to see Yellowstone again and hope to be home in another 10-12 days. Other than that, we will go, as we have done since the beginning, where the wind blows us.

Note to Jane and Gary: Thanks for the note, glad you are with us too!

Note to Mom: Sorry, it took me a bit longer to get this posted tonight. I started looking at all our pictures. We have taken over 1000 pictures now! Thank God for digital cameras!!! It was good talking to you this afternoon. Please don't worry about us, we are having the time
of our lives and are doing just great.

Note to Kevin: Don't lose those tickets, we are really looking forward to our trip with you guys later in October.

Note to Cameron: Did you make it to SF last week?

Thanks to all and we really enjoy hearing from you, it makes us feel like we are sharing our great good fortune with everyone. Thanks to everyone for wishing us the best.

Oh, forgot to tell you about my new friend Tom Yeager. We met Tom on the Cass ride. He had a huge backpack and when we got to the top of the mountain, he struck out walking and planned to backpack/hike for a week in the forest, all by himself!!! He was from Florida and has been coming to West Virginia for 10 years, doing this hike. He hikes back down to the bottom of the hill and takes a week to do it. He loves the solitude. I told him I would stay awake for nights worrying about him on the mountain all alone, so he promised to send me an email when he got out of the mountains!!! Nice, huh? The funny thing is, I think he really will.

Ok, must close this for now and get the pictures posted. That always takes a lot of time.
Much love to everyone......
Wayne and Colleen

Slatyfork West Virginia...........no lie

2007-09-27T05:19:00.000-07:00

You know sometimes when things just seem to go your way, thing just seem to fall into place with little or no effort? Well that's what happened to us when we found the Morning Glory Inn in Slatyfork West Virginia. We left Columbus Ohio and zig zagged through West Virginia to arrive at Slatyfork yesterday afternoon. This is a little ski resort area near Wayne's railroad in Cass West Virginia. This Morning Glory Inn is a Bed and Breakfast. Neither of us has ever stayed at a B&B before. What a treat! This place is really great. We are the only ones here right now.
We understand someone else is coming today, but right now we have the run of the place to ourselves.
First on arriving, we were met by a beautiful white cat named Tessa. Rod says Tessa owns the place and we are sure he's right. We were directed upstairs to our room and what a room it is. It is HUUUGE ! There is a full King Sized Sleigh bed plus a Queen Size bed on the opposite end of the room. Two large overstuffed chairs accent the room. It is decorated very beautifully and has a private bath as well.

Slatyfork is south of Elkins West Virginia and is just a small ski resort area. It is only about 30 minutes from Cass, where the scenic Railroad is. We are so excited to get here. I didn't post this last night because we had no signal in our room. Right now I am in the dining room, having just been served the best homemade breakfast imaginable by the owners! I didn't get the thingy to download the pictures we took yesterday, so alas, no pictures today but I promise I will get them tomorrow.

Note to Jim: Thanks for sending the addresses in El Dorado, Wayne is delighted and has been telling me all about the people who lived there. I guess we will see Aunt Bess and maybe take her to the farm with us. thanks for the info!

Note to Lisa: I will send you the ND pics as soon as you send me your email address. I knew I should have brought everything with me but I didn't.

It is 8:30 in the morning and a bit foggy here right now. You can smell the wood burning fireplaces in the air, it's so cool! I think I am going to have to go upstairs and get ready, Wayne is chomping at the bit to get to Cass.

I will take tons of pictures today and get them all downloaded so that I can put them in the blog entry tonight.

All Aboard !!!
Love
Wayne and Colleen

Amish Education

2007-09-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

As I may have mentioned before, we had intended to go into Pennsylvania and find an Amish settlement as I have been fascinated by the culture. Quite by accident this morning, we discovered we were actually very near to an Amish settlement right there in Indiana where we were. So we went down a couple county roads and off the main interstate to a little town called Shipshawanee Indiana. Later we went on down the road to Topeka, Indiana to another settlement.
Let me tell you, this was such an experience. It was incredible. The weather was miserable.......mis....er......able ! It was so hot and muggy that it almost hurt to breathe. But we stopped off at the first trading post we found. After getting inside, we found out it had nothing to do with the Amish people, but the lady told us about the flea market just about a mile down the road. So off we went. It was a huge thing with dozens and dozens of vendors. Some were Amish, some were not. We walked around for a while and went in and out of the vendor booths. Having heard before we got there that the Amish people do not like to have their picture taken, we were very discreet with our cameras. I had so many questions I wanted to ask some of the ones I spoke with but didn't get too inquisitive so as not to offend them. I did speak with one lady (not Amish) who seemed to know a lot about them. She said that the ladies do not have any buttons on their clothes. The men do have buttons on their shirts though. Not sure the reason why. The ladies keep their dresses together with straight pins down the front and a sash around the waist. They all wear the small white caps and the mean wear the round type straw hats. They travel exclusively either by bicycle or by horse and buggy. We saw sooooo many of the horse and buggies it was so much fun! They travel down the road just at a quick trot and have the same right of way as an automobile. They are licensed and have rear view mirrors and reflectors on the back in 4 places. The front of the buggy is completely enclosed with windows that can be opened or closed in case of bad weather.
It is a really crazy site to see so many of them just traveling down the road.
We had lunch at an Amish restaurant. The young girls waiting tables would come to wait on you, then return to their table in the corner of the room. There they would sit until something they needed to do. There were about 6-8 of them and they would all sit together until they had to get up and do something. Their steps were very measured.
Amish tradition calls for the young men to be clean shaven until they are married. At that point, they begin to grow what will become the long beard of the elders. They all dress alike and the ones we had interaction with were very friendly and very warm.
The pictures we have are not the best, but as I said, they do not like cameras so we had to be as discreet as possible, thus not always getting good pictures.
We thoroughly enjoyed our day among the Amish. In the town of Topeka Indiana they were having a livestock auction and there were 30-40 buggies parked across from the auction barn. The horses were tied up at a hitching post just like in the old west.
After leaving the Amish settlements, we drove a circuitous route to get to our destination for the night, Columbus Ohio. Thank God for our GPS lady or we would never have made it through that country!

Note to Jim and Gail: Thanks again for our lady, she's been a Godsend!

Note to Todd: Thanks for all the comments, we really appreciate it very much. You are right, Wayne and I do not fit the profile of terrorists!

Note to Todd and Lisa: Alright you two !!!! ;)

Note to Lisa: Send me your email address, I didn't bring it with me and you know how my memory is.... ;)

Note to Allan and Jane: Welcome aboard our blog, thanks for reading!!!

We were very impressed with Indiana. The land was scenic and the farms and farmhouses were neat and well maintained. The entire experience in Indiana was a positive one. We crossed over into Ohio midday today and..........hmmmm not so much! With all due respect to anyone from Ohio, we are just not impressed with what we've seen yet. It's a bit trashy and not so clean. Lima Ohio was actually really bad. We just went right on through!

Tomorrow we plan to have about a 4-5 hour drive to Cass West Virginia, home of the railroad that Wayne is modeling right now. We are real excited to finally get to see it. Not sure if we will be able to stay right in Cass, I guess it's a really small place and not a lot of lodgings to choose from. We will find something though.

After Cass, we plan to turn West and head back in the homeward direction. We plan to go back via Kansas this time so I can see where Wayne's family is from. Then we are going back through Yellowstone again. It was just that kind of experience, we want to see it again. I think we may go across to Oregon and come home via the coastal route to our beautiful San Francisco, hopefully sometime around the 11-12 of October.

Love to All
Wayne and Colleen

p.s. while typing this, a HUGE thunder storm has started. Wow, I haven't heard thunder like this for a long time. The rain is pounding our window. There is a heavy wind blowing too. We just got back from having dinner about 45 minutes ago, guess we got back under cover just in time. Not to worry, we are in a very solid large hotel and just fine.

Statistical Update from Elkhart Indiana

2007-09-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

Thought it might be time to update the statistics of our trip so far:
Days on the Road = 18
Mileage = almost 4000
No.of States Visited = 13
No. of motels/hotels = 10
No. of License plates = 41 states

No wonder we are getting tired earlier these days!

On the highway first thing this morning, leaving Madison Wisconsin we saw a small fishing boat with an outboard motor. What is unusual about that you say? Well, this one was painted with camouflage. Now I ask you, when you are on the lake or river fishing, why on earth do you need camo paint on your boat?

We stopped off in Beloit Wisconsin this morning. It is a little town with a great college campus. Wayne thinks his grandfather may have attended that college. The town was very cute and the campus was beautiful. Beloit is right on the border with Illinois. Just a few feet outside of Beloit was the "Welcome to Illinois" sign.

We had lunch at a very unique place called an "oasis". It was built over the freeway. You pull off the freeway and park then walk into the building which goes all the way across the freeway. It has a variety of fast food sort of things to eat and some small gift shop places. It was really neat. I had a Gyros sandwich. I love that stuff!

We are still surrounded with CORN fields everywhere. All the way through Illinois and now in Indiana too. I think we are all going to be using Ethanol soon and seeing all this corn shows me how easy that would be to produce. We've seen it for miles and miles through at least 3 states now.

We are learning about toll booths today. From about an hour before we got to Chicago until we stopped tonight in Elkhart Indiana, we went through a total of 13 toll booths! That is not a misprint, it was 13! It cost us anywhere from $0.40 to $2.50. It is incredible. They will be very close too, only minutes from each other. Sometimes you go through one and they give you a card with the date and time on it along with the type of vehicle you are driving and the location that you are passing through. Then, when you get OFF the freeway, you pay according to how long you traveled on that part of the road. In all, the 13 toll booths cost us $10.55 !!!

Note to Pat: Thanks so much for all your emails. We love reading them. You asked me about how I got the job in Wall South Dakota. In another lifetime (early/mid 60's) I was married to a guy in the Air Force. He was stationed at one of the radar sites out in the Badlands. My oldest son Todd was born while I lived there. The nearest Air Force Base was 50 miles away. He was born there. A few days after we brought the baby home from the hospital, there was a horrible blizzard (you can google the blizzard of Feb 1966). It was a traumatic experience I'll tell you all about it another time.

Note to Todd: Thanks for the comments on the blog. Tonight I am including a picture of your mother in the back of a cruiser in Chicago. Not to worry, it was a great cop we ran into at Wrigley Field today and he invited me to get in the back of his car. Wayne told him we have a son on the job and he asked about where, etc. Wayne showed him your card. He also volunteered to put me in cuffs, but I declined that pleasure! When Wayne finished taking the picture of me in the car, the cop said to Wayne "Ok, I have one question for you, how much do you want her back?" Wayne had his chance for sure, but he quickly said yes, he wanted me back so the cop told him to open the door and let me out! What an experience that was. I have never been in the back of a cruiser before. This cop was a lot of fun.

After lunch, we went through Chicago and saw Wrigley Field. It was a lot different than when I was there with Todd a long time ago. Lots of security now, all gates closed tightly, lots of people standing around to be sure you don't get in. We walked all around the stadium and found one gate open with a very nice guy guarding the gate. I asked him if I could just step in and take some pictures. He said "right from there, yes", indicating that I couldn't step in through the little breezeway a few feet from the entrance to the field. I just stepped in a little at a time, started snapping pictures and the guy was following me every step. Wayne kept saying Colleen, Colleen and I just kept on stepping a bit closer. As we left, we both thanked the guy for his patience, Wayne apologized for me and I told the guy "you know, he always has to apologize for me" and he really laughed out loud so I guess he wasn't too upset with us.
Didn't get really good pictures, but got some anyway.

We decided to stop around 4:00 this afternoon and got a room at the Quality Suites in Elkhart Indiana. We went a little ways down the road to a restaurant and got a bite to eat. We hadn't unpacked or sat down to rest because we knew if we did, we wouldn't want to get up and go eat so we left right away. After having a nice meal, we came back to the room and I noticed the clocks were blinking. I turned on the TV and got nothing but snow. Then the air conditioning turned off, the lights went out and guess what, NO POWER. Wayne went down to the office and found out no one knew what happened and so he told the girl we were going to leave. We didn't have a good feeling about it anyway. Two soft drink machines were broken, one of the side doors didn't work, one snack vending machine was completely empty and Wayne just had a bad feeling about it from the beginning. When the power went off, that was it, we loaded all our stuff back on the luggage cart and off we went. She couldn't check us out of course because no computer.

We drove 15-20 miles down the road and found a Holiday Inn Express which is where we are now. Not sure what town we are in but we were in Elkhart when the power went off.

It is stiffling hot and very humid here. We didn't want to take the chance that it would be a long time before the power came back on, no air conditioning is NOT the way we wanted to sleep tonight. So, we are fine now and cool as cucumbers!

Forgot to tell you, after Chicago, we drove to South Bend Indiana which, as my daughter Lisa can tell you is home to a certain university named Notre Dame. We drove all through the campus. What a great place that is. Very nice campus. We took lots of pictures which I will email to Lisa and put a couple here for all of you to see.

We are near some Amish communities here and plan to find them and check that out tomorrow. Not sure where the road will take us other than that. We have to talk about it tonight and decide.

I sure don't want to sound like a broken record here, but this trip has been and is so very special to Wayne and I that it is just beyond words. We are both like a couple kids and having so much fun. We have had incredible good luck and absolutely no problems. The only things you could even consider small glitches would be not being able to find a room in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and having to drive on to Alpine, not a big thing. The only other one would be tonight's power failure and quick re-location of hotels. Both of those things are minor, I know, but that is the closest thing to glitches that we have experienced. We are almost embarrassed that things are going so well for us.

We are both so very grateful and thankful that we are having this great trip. It is providing us with such great memories as to last the rest of our lives.

Love to All
Wayne and Colleen

Goodbye Minnesota, Hello Wisconsin

2007-09-23T18:15:00.000-07:00

Before we left Rochester, Minnesota this morning, we drove into town and saw the famous Mayo Clinic. Wow, what an impressive place that is. It was almost reverant being in the shadow of such an important and powerful place. There is lots of life saving and valuable research work that goes on there. It was a compound of sorts actually. There is not just one building, it consists of several buildings around the main skyscraper clinic. It sits in a very pretty part of Rochester. There are hotels and motels all over the place. Just about everything you have ever heard of is there. I would suppose they stay busy all the time too, with people coming from all over the world to get help there.

After getting a few pictures, which I will pick out a couple for here, we left town on I-90 again and headed for Wisconsin.

Minnesota and Wisconsin are separated by the Mississippi River. How great is that? We saw the Mississippi River and boy is it beautiful. We got a few pictures there too (surprise!) We stopped at a rest stop that was also an information place and it was a beautiful little park. We walked down by the river's edge and got some pictures. We were completely alone on the pathway and it was so peaceful and beautiful. There we were, just the two of us on the banks of the mighty Mississip'.

We noticed a few things immediately upon crossing into Wisconsin. The drivers are insane!! They tailgate like you wouldn't believe. They pay NO attention to the speed limit, it's incredible! Wayne was driving and had the cruise control set right on the speed limit and we actually were plugging up the highway. People were rushing past us like we were doing 40!

The next thing we noticed was that a lot of the farm buildings and barns had a lot of metal, while all we saw in other states were wood. The farms here as well as in Minnesota and most other states we've been are all so neat and almost manicured.
There is no rusting old farm machinery or debris or other garbage laying around. Not only the areas around the houses, but also the areas around all the out buildings is well maintained and green and pretty.

There is an absolute minimum of trash and litter on the highways. I really notice the difference here from California. It almost makes me ashamed to think of how our highways and freeways in California are so littered compared to these.

And, finally, more corn!!!!!! Corn is truly king here. Miles and miles of corn. The miles of corn fields we saw in Minnesota didn't quit when we crossed over into Wisconsin~

We think it's alfalfa, but there is a green crop that almost hurts your eyes to look at, it's such a bright green. I got a picture of it but not sure it really does it justice. It's the greenest green you've ever seen.

The leaves are beginning to turn and we are getting some really precious scenery of fall colors.

Note to Dennis and Lori: Thanks for the suggestion to go this way instead of through Iowa. It was a great idea. You are right, it's very pretty here.

We are in Madison Wisconsin tonight and plan to go through Chicago tomorrow to see Wrigley Field. There was a game today but they were selling BLEACHER tickets for $129 each. We decided to go see the stadium tomorrow when there is no game for free! Do not have any idea where we will stop for the night tomorrow. I think Chicago is only about an hour or so from here but don't know how much time we will spend there.

Note to Todd: I have been thinking about the week your Dad and I spent here with you when you got out of boot camp at Great Lakes. That was a fun week, wasn't it?

We are continuing on I-90 through Chicago tomorrow and I will post details of our day tomorrow night.

Thanks for reading......love to all
Wayne and Colleen