R O C K S!

Coming back from Grand Coulee I took these shots. Is this not just beautiful! So peaceful ....

I don't know exactly what causes the colors on the rocks ... I'm sure minerals of some kind

I'm standing by our coach at the TT park Crescent Bar near Quincy WA. That is the Columbia flowing in the background. The only problem is no access to it from the park. The pool was closed, clubhouse air had gone out, BUT we got to play pickleball! A lot of fun.

GRAND COULEE DAM

When you see the dam, it doesn't look that impressive.

But when you see it from about 5 miles, it IS impressive. I hope you can see how big it is. A few facts: It is one of the largest concrete structures, it was started in 1933 and took 9 yrs to build working around the clock to finish it in 1942. Only 9 people died during construction, I say only because thousands worked on it.

One of the purposes of the dam, besides flood control, was irrigation. These pipes do that sending water to over 500,000 acres. It wasn't until later that electricity started being produced and is the main purpose to date. I could not find out how much it cost the people that irrigate their farms. In fact when I asked one of the men at the info desk he seemed irritated I wanted to know. So guess that will be on my todo list. (No not to irritate someone, to find the cost of water!)

APPLES - CHERRIES - HAY - WATER

This is in the Quincey,Wa. area. As you can imagine training these apple trees is very labor intensive. I hope you can see all the wires. There are lots of these young trees dotting the land. It seems the orchards don't last very long. And there aren't groves as I thought there would be like the orange groves in Florida.
I'm sure it isn't, but the orchards seem haphazard, as if the planters said , "Hey this looks like a good place!"

As we drove along we saw all this hay stacked in the fields. Field after field .... but no cattle, no dairies. So asked about it and we were told it was mostly all exported ..... to Japan.

Now the secret to all the cherry, apple, apricot, potatoe and timothy hay growth is the beautiful Columbia River. It has 11 dams on it. Grand Coulee is one of them and that will be the subject of my next blog.

DAY TRIP FROM NEWPORT

First we had to have a new windshield installed. Occured (probably) on a road that is beyond belief construction wise. They had the whole road torn out and we were driving on gravel. That was both sides, will sure be nice when they get it finished (no telling when).

We took Hwy 20 out of Newport and went by the Kalispel Indian Resz.

They have a wonderful big herd of buffalo that roam on several hundred acres.

Hwy 20 follows the Pend Oreille (Pen Ooray) river. I have never seen so many beautiful rivers in one area. They are so clear and healthy looking.

SALT LAKE CITY

This picture was taken 26 floors up in the office building of the Mormans. Great view

This is the front of the building, note newly married couple. The lady that helped us upstairs said that it is not unusual for up to 50 weddings a day are performed.

Here is the magnificient pipe organ. It is not a great picture, but maybe you can make it out. Depending on the song, the background color is changed. Unless you have been there it is kind of hard to decscribe. There is playing at 12 to 12:30 every day of the week.

This was at our campground when we were near Salt Lake. I don't know if you can see it, but looks like snow. It is from the cottonwood trees around the park. These are wonderful trees, but do have their drawbacks.

MORE ROCKS!

This is on the road just going into Utah on the way to Salt Lake. Should be 5 pictures. Enjoy!

MONTROSE,CO - UTAH

Have you ever seen anything so pretty. Boy we are now in my kind of country. ROCKS !

This is my family on my mom's side and they have been married for 61 years! We are over half way there
it will be 48 years for us this year.

Utah is one of my favorite states .... maybe you can guess why. I hope you are as excited as I am about all the rock pictures I have taken. If not you might as well not check the next blog.

The layers in this rock formation are so unique.
Next ..... more rocks going into Salt Lake.

TRAVELING NEW MEXICO - COLORADO

A race track in Raton,NM where John use to race in the late 60's. It has been closed for several years. Now a "Racino" is being built, just off I-25. That being a casino (will be open in May of 2010) and a race track (open 2 months later). They were having ground breaking ceremonies the day we left.

Entering beautiful Colorado ....

First glimpse of the great Rockies ....

This was really neat, I hope you can see the line of light rain towards the middle and right of the picture. It was really phenomenal and I was glad I was able to catch it.
Montrose, CO. next
Did I mention so far we have not missed a day w/o rain?

JOHNS NEPHEW & NEW HOME

This parking space turned out very well, even had 30amp electric. I did mention that he might have the road paved next time we came.

This is Hugh and Iris's new home, very beautiful and very comfortable. They even still liked each other after the house was built and they moved in. (Did you notice the road to house is paved)

This is Hugh and his sister Connie. They belonged to John's oldest brother. It must be a Lively trait that no one ever ages, except for graying of the hair.

This turkey (I named him Henry, since they had failed to do so)was here before the house. So he stayed, he seems to just put up with humans. Henry has a family of 3 hens and about 12 chicks. The chicks are so cute. When I saw them, had left my camera in the house. Then next time I had left the camera in the coach (you know for when they came again) and they didn't show.
By the way did I mention it rained while we were there. It was said, kinda unusual since everyone is trying to combine wheat.

BRANSON VISITS

This is my sister Margaret. She came up to stay a few days while we were in Branson. We shopped, ate, went to a show, ate, shopped, slept, played cards, shopped, ate, played cards. Anyway you get my drift.
Our friends Neal and Ermalee and Johns sister and her husband also came. Got caught up on a lot of visiting.
By the way, rained just about every day we were there. We sweated one day, thought it wasn't going to, but finally it did.
On to western OK and a visit with Johns nephew. He has built a new house, I told him to fix a concrete pad and 50 amp service for us ...... I'm sure he jumped right on it.

MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI

As you can see the Big River! On our way to Branson it was amazing to see how it flooded.

If you look to the lower right you can see how it came over the banks.

As we were going on secondary roads, there were some picnic areas ... that the only way you could tell they were picnic areas was you could see the covers for the picnic tables.
Up next Branson visit.

VISIT WITH KATE

Isn't she cute. She now has a full year of college under her belt and she just LOVED it. In fact she loved it so much, she is going to change to a school in Baltimore,MD. We enjoyed our visit so much with her.

She came over for lunch and she took us to a restaurant (I can't remember the name) that we had no idea how to order. Kate tried to explain it to us, but sounded weird. The long and short of it was the waiter gave you a bowl, you started thru the line, picked out your choice of meat (or all of them) I had shrimp. Then you picked out seasonings, sauces, rice - noodles- potatoe. THEN you handed the bowl to a cook, he threw it on the grill and cooked it. As wierd as it sounds it was good. The name had Kahn (as in Mongolia)in it as I remember. (I thought of you Barb and Mitch when we were ordering and how funny you would think it was)

Kate and John went to KFC for dinner. We were familiar with that. Kate stayed all afternoon and part of the evening. She is very interested in her background, so we got out pictures of her dad, Johns parents, my parents etc. We enjoyed telling funny stories (and true) and she enjoyed it.

Yes, when we left Hendersonville, Tenn. it was in the rain. Headed for Branson