Road Trip: Day #6

Two more states.

Indiana

Ohio 

 So.  Here we are.

It is now time to play.

Running in the park.

Reading books.

Building legos.

Back soon.

Road Trip: Days 4 and 5

There is so much to share and last night we had no internet connection.  So tonight I can post for both Day 4 and Day 5.

Day 4

 Night #3 we were camped at a Kansas state park just over the state line from Oklahoma. 

Our breakfast view

the lake

We chose this place because of its proximity to Laura Ingalls' "Little House on the Prairie" home in Independence, Kansas.  Arriving shortly after the stated (on the website) opening time, we discovered that the buildings were in fact NOT open.  Nor did anyone show up to open the buildings during the time we were there.  Oh well.  (The link above will show you much more than we actually saw.)

Then it was on through the southeast corner of Kansas by way of Old US Route 66 to see the Rainbow Bridge, the last remaining Marsh Arch bridge.

Then over the state line to Missouri

and on to points East.

Day 5

Mansfield, Missouri.

Laura Ingalls Wilder's home on Rocky Ridge Farm.  

Although photos are not allowed in the home or the museum so we can't show it all to you, we thoroughly enjoyed this visit.  Both of the guides were well informed and obviously enjoyed sharing what they knew of Laura and Almanzo's life there.  This link to the official website will give you more information.

Laura's favorite view

Did you know that Laura and Almanzo's daughter Rose built another home for them?  They only lived in Rock House down the road one mile from Rocky Ridge Farm for 8 years, but it is significant because it was here that Laura wrote the first four books in her Little House series.

More adventures today:

Driving through the Ozarks.  Beautiful scenery but not easy to photograph from a moving car.  Rolling hills covered with forests, curvy roads, farms and houses of varying perceived prosperity.

Shaw Nature Preserve. Near St. Louis. Walking in the rain.

Lots of little bunnies pretending to hide in the green grass

Finally, another state and another Route 66 bridge.

A horrible photo, but we were on a bridge over the Mississippi River so we couldn't slow down in traffic.  And it was raining.

Old Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi River.  It is possible to walk or bike across the Mississippi on this bridge although we didn't do it.  It was late (7pm) and getting dark.  And it was raining.  (Have you noticed a theme here?)

This is the last part of Route 66 we will follow.

Now we're making a beeline for mid Ohio to see a couple of special someones!

Oh, are you bored yet?  I haven't been bored at all on this trip.  Someone (hi, Caroline!) asked, "Are you knitting?"  Silly question :)  Oh yes.  I packed plenty of projects.  Here are three in various stages of completion.

Handspun alpaca lace shawl.

Every row has 401 stitches.  Size 6 needles.

Pink toddler hat.  I love the simple two stitch cables.

Yes, the variegated yarn really is that bright.  I'm calling these the Circus Clown Socks.

And so to bed...

tomorrow is another day.

Road Trip! Day #3

Four states.

We started in Tucumcari, New Mexico.

Texas (The Panhandle)

Oklahoma

Kansas

Road Trip! Day 2

Breakfast in Flagstaff, Arizona.  Macy's Euro Cafe.  The. Best. Coffee.  The vegan waffle and the granola were also excellent.  And the company? Perfect--Son #1 The Chaplain and Wonderful Daughter-in-Law.

Back on the road.  Highway 40 East with forays along Route 66.

Standin' on the corner in Winslow, Arizona

Five hundred miles today.  We drove through basin and range country, mesa lands.

Rio Puerco Bridge, built in 1933.

Then, east of Albuquerque, we encountered strong winds and a dust storm.

The wind is still blowing, but we are tucked in safely at our night's lodging.

Road Trip! Day 1

We are traveling.  We're on a road trip.  After a rather unusual weekend in which we attended a graduation in downtown Los Angeles, we returned home and I promptly had the rest of my weekend sidetracked by an allergic reaction to 'something' (if we knew what, I'd be sure to avoid it in the future), slept most of Sunday, and muddled through Monday.

But Tuesday was a new day.  We headed east (well, we can't head west much or we'll fall off the continent into the Pacific Ocean).

Tonight we will sleep in that wonderful town of Flagstaff.  Having arrived at almost dark, I didn't have any opportunity to take photos.  Maybe in the morning...

We drove through Ventura County and Los Angeles County and then entered the US's largest county by area-San Bernardino County.  As I said, we are headed east.  This first day we detoured a bit to drive along the famous Route 66.

We have gone from 500 feet in elevation to 7,335 feet as we crossed the Arizona divide east of Williams.  We've passed avocado and citrus orchards, valleys of Joshua Tree cactus, ocotillo cactus, creosote bushes and drying tumbleweeds,  and beautiful mountains and mesas covered in pine tree forests.  Yes, all this in one day.  The change in vegetation is staggering.

Arizona!

Amboy Crater is located south of a section of Old Route 66 between Needles and Barstow.  It was created by a volcano which has been extinct for several thousand years.  The erupting volcano left flows of basalt and an incredible mound which can be reached by an easy hike.  We opted out of the hike since we had a destination to reach by evening and because the temperature was a sweltering 103F.

Tomorrow?  After breakfast with Son #1 and his lovely wife who drove up from Phoenix to meet us, on to points east!

A Hike, A Word, A Photo

My week has been lovely--just what I love in the summer--a little busyness, a little work, a little relaxation.  I'm linking to Susanne's Friday Fave Fives.

1.  I took a hike. Up a mountain.  To the top.  Among the burned up cinders of the recent wildfire.  Across a meadow.   Eight miles.  Then back down another trail to the Pacific Ocean.

Acres and acres of charred trees and grasses.

But there was evidence of new trail construction.

(We were hiking from the trail beyond the bridge and only saw the DANGER sign after we had crossed the bridge.  Fortunately, it was sufficiently stable for foot traffic.)

And new growth!

There was ONE yucca plant blooming already!

2.  The Professor read a NEW WORD this week.  Neither of us had ever heard or seen this word before:

IRREFRAGABLE

So, yeah, we are a bit nerdy about language.  It's not often The Professor finds a word with which he is completely unfamiliar.  In context, he understood its meaning, but it was a new word.

3.  I am making progress on the mammoth scanning of photos project.  I wrote a blog post about it and if you are interested, I'd appreciate your reading it and contributing any wisdom and experience you might have.

4.  A friend and a dinner.  We drove to Santa Barbara to have dinner with a lady and her grandson who is a close friend of Son #2.  It was a delightful dinner, and we thoroughly enjoyed their company and conversation.

5.  A clean closet.  I spent an hour or two one day this week decluttering my closet.  I love my clean and decluttered closet!

A new fave quote.

"In my experience, the people who survive are the ones who are willing to travel light."

A Little Advice Here

This summer I have a goal.  I want to organize my photos.  Somehow, probably because I truly do care, I have become the caretaker of many family pictures from both sides of my family.  Therefore, I have hundreds of photos of ancestors, none of which were ever organized in albums.  I think what happened was that people sent copies of pictures they had to share with other family members and so what has filtered down to me are the 'extras' nobody needed.  Also, it's possible that many of the pictures came from collections people found when a family member died.  I have already done much of the organizing of 'family group', 'individual', and 'decade'.  Attempts have been made to identify the people in the photos.  Unidentifiable photos have already been tossed.

I am also facing the task of archiving the photos from my own family.  Because we have a huge number of photos of our work in Indonesia besides the usual family adventures and school pictures, there is an additional level to dealing with them.  What is historically significant and should be saved for the Moskona people?

  Where is the cross over line between private and ministry photos?

I've begun the task of scanning the photos and have been trying to decide how to deal with the already scanned pictures.  As I see it, I have four options.  They are:

1.  Scan all photos except the obvious blurry and truly bad ones.  Put all scanned photos into albums.  I call this method the 'archiving the memories' method.  Until now, I have been storing photos in photo boxes and photo albums of varying archival quality.  Since there are many larger photos from 5"x7" to 8"x10", and even bigger, I had put these in sheet protectors in large three ring binders.  Now I am in the scanning stage and simply replacing the scanned photos into the albums and binders.

 Do I really need to keep photos of the USO swimming hole in San Marcos, TX or the snow on top of Snowqualmie Pass just because my dad was there?

2.  Scan all photos as above.  Keep picture copies of the best in an album and store the rest in photo boxes (organized).  This is the abbreviated archiving the memories option.

3.  Scan only the best photos and keep those in an album.  Discard the rest of the pictures.

4.  Scan only the best and save no hard copies and have only the CDs available to view on a digital photo frame device.  CDs could also be sent to appropriate recipients.

I would love to hear from people who have worked on photo archive projects.  What option did you choose and why?  Did you encounter any special problems?  What do you wish you had done differently, and what would you do differently now?  I want your opinions, please.