Reunion Tour - 5

After spending the last two days in Springfield Illinois, I can see why they call this Lincoln-land. Many of the attractions, businesses, roads, etc. have Lincoln in the name. We started out Wednesday morning by picking up a tourist map with all the attractions listed in the downtown area and decided which ones to go to. We started with the old state capitol building, which was last used as a capitol in 1876. Then on to the building where Lincoln practiced law with three different partners. The picture is of his desk where he worked and where he wrote his first inaugural address after being elected President. On to the Presbyterian church where his family's pew was on display. The stained glass picture from his church was shown for a reason. The picture was entitled "The Perfect Woman" and Dorothy wanted me to take her picture beside it. I told her she still had some work to do before she got to that level. Then on to the Lincoln Home, which is fairly spartan but which had many of their actual household items. This morning we started out at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. This museum is fairly new and is truly state of the art. I have included four pictures of exhibits from this outstanding museum. The next three pictures are from the current Illinois State Capitol Building which also had a number of good exhibits and is a beautiful building. We capped off our day with a trip to the Illinois State Museum and the Lincoln Railroad Depot. Dorothy and I were both born, raised and educated in Illinois and we both learned much about Lincoln. It was a fun couple of days. We may not have internet service for the next few days but I will fill you in on Reunion #2 when I get a chance.

Reunion - 4

Here is the GHOST reporting on how things really were in the last week as we were tripping in the great Wild West. We left Tennessee on a Monday morning and drove to Illinois....stopped to see Glen's mother in the nursing home and she said......"What are you doing here?" We explained and then we left and went to rest for the next day. We picked up Dorothy's sister first and a few miles later we picked up the younger brother. Barbara was the entertainment committee and John was for the knowledge needed as we traveled the miles and questions arose. The first mistake was talking because Barbara had a song for one of the words in a sentence.......Try it. It is possible to pick out a word and sing a line or 2 familiar or not. Then we saw trains.....I guess we lead a sheltered life as seeing trains really excited the group. We counted cars. 4 people did not have the same figure. Then we decided to keep count of the trains we saw............in the next few days.........oh my.our numbers were all different. Someone mentioned RAILROAD and that brought a song. We tried to play the alphabet game but that was hard because there were very few billboards. And the letter Q was no where to be found. We had to appoint one person to be in charge of choosing a restaurant and one to choose a place to stay. Stopping at the Rest Stops found us carefully getting out of the car and unraveling our legs. We had to stand still for awhile before the legs would work. And by then it was time to get in again. We found that exits off the interstates in Wyoming are concrete under the road and off but the trails from there were dirt and went somewhere. We had troubles seeing homes faraway. And then someone would say...what do these people do??????????We passed a private golf course about 50 miles from anything else and wondered who played there.. We were excited to stop at Little America as the billboards(the only ads we saw) were 150 miles away...and they had advertised ice cream cones cheap. We got 2 for 75 cents. Arriving in Park City, Utah was GREAT. It meant the ability to bother someone else. Older brother Ken and Trine live there. The weather was great and sunshine every day. Ken showed us all the sights in the area. It was GREAT and we gave him an A plus in tour directing. Trine was the COOK and we believe she will be able to have her own restaurant someday. After pestering them enough we did the whole trip in reverse. We were more careful in words we used, did not play the alphabet game and at the end of the trip we made up numbers for the amount of things we had counted.. Forgot to mention that there was a young person who flew out from Knoxville to join the group..He added youth that the old group did not have. GHOST

Reunion - 3

After an early departure from Kearney Nebraska, we chugged on eastward at 75 mph towards home for John and Barb. Coming from Park City UT we traveled 716 miles the first day and 619 the next. We saw lots of antelopes, trains, irrigation, cattle, desert, semi trucks, and as we got to Iowa and Illinois, corn and soybean fields. The weather was ideal most of the way, with only a few showers but much cloud cover to shield us from the blazing sun. We didn't stop much but there is a picture of the Mississippi River from the Illinois welcome station. The other pictures show one of our favorite activities. Now a word about our traveling partners, John and Barb. While both were co-drivers with us, John was in charge of education and Barb was in charge of entertainment. I lost track of the giggle count early in the trip but it must have been somewhere around the Federal deficit number. Reunion Number One on the Reunion Tour was highly successful. The video will be coming out soon, Barb in charge of course. Thanks again for the hosting activities, Ken and Trine. Since we have a couple of days before the next reunion, Dorothy and I are going to do some tourist stuff around our home area.

Reunion Tour - 2

After arriving at Park City UT on Thursday, we took a tour of Ken's and Trine's places of employment and got to see some of the ski and golf developments in the Park City area. On Friday we toured the Salt Lake City area, including stops at the This Is The Place monument where the Mormons first arrived in the Salt Lake area, Antelope Island (which is a large island recreation and wildlife area in Salt Lake connected to the mainland by a 7 mile causeway), then took a tour of the Mormon Tabernacle. In the process we picked up son Greg at the Salt Lake City airport so he could join in the reunion activities. On Saturday we looked at some developments in the Heber City area then went to an Indian powwow in a park. That was very colorful and very interesting. Then on to lunch at Sundance and a ski lift ride overlooking the Sundance area, including a sighting of Robert Redford's house. Then on a mountaintop ride to the Cascade Springs area. On Sunday we stayed in the Park City area, going first to the Olympic Park, site of part of the 2002 Winter Olympics. The more adventurous of our group went on the Zip Ride and the Quicksilver ride, which were kind of simulations of Olympic events. Then moved on to a walk around downtown Park City, which is a collection of shops and studios with lots of opportunities for investments. Our evening meal was a celebration of Trine's birthday at a restaurant called Nacho Mama's, followed by birthday cake at home. By this time we were getting pretty tired and we called it a reunion. Monday, we said our goodbyes and headed east for a long day of driving, 716 miles in all to Kearney, Nebraska.

Beginning of The Reunion Tour

After three weeks of rest from the Southwest Trip, we're eager and ready to go again. We're calling it The Reunion Tour because we're going from a reunion of Dorothy's siblings in Utah to a reunion of our high school class (we were in the same class and this is our 50th) to a reunion of my siblings at Iowa's Amana Colony. We left on June 19 making our regular trip to our Illinois home area, a trip we've probably made a hundred times. Arrived early enough to visit my mother at her nursing home - she was surprised to see us. Headed west the next morning after picking up Dorothy's sister Barbara and her brother John. Crossed Iowa on I-80 and stopped at the Iowa capitol building in Des Moines for a break in the driving. It's the beautiful gold domed building shown. Then ventured north to drive across the Nebraska Sand Hill country. On to the Scotts Bluff National Monument and some nice panoramic views. While driving through Wyoming the highway paralleled a main railroad. I have never seen so many trains in my life. They were mostly hauling coal from the Wyoming coal fields to steam plants and other users to the east. For another break we visited the Fort Bridger State Park near the Utah border. The giant statue of Lincoln sits along I-80 which is near the old Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway across the US. Got to our destination of Park City by mid-afternoon to visit Brother Ken and Trine. Spent the rest of the day resting up for several days of tours of the Salt Lake City area.

Best photos from the Southwest trip

I have put together two short slideshows of photos from our Southwest trip. They are my favorites - some were on the blog and some weren't. You can access them at: http://homepage.mac.com/weberglen/PhotoAlbum8.html The second one is composed of flower pictures at: http://homepage.mac.com/weberglen/PhotoAlbum9.html Just click "Start Slideshow" and click the right arrow through the show. Hope you enjoy. Glen