Autumn 08 in KC

This has been a great year for fall color in our area. Some years we don't get much color and some years we get lots of color, but it doesn't last. This year the color came gradually in stages and lasted for weeks.


Our photo club theme this month was autumn color and we took different apporaches to the theme. Wife's solution was a very creative still-life approach. It was all done at the kitchen table and involved a light table, tripod, camera, and computer. Yes there is a little Photo Shop magic here. It's a very pleasing result.

Hubby's approach was more straight forward (imagine that). The pictures below are from the KC area and eastern Kansas.

Red leaves foreground - mirror curtain wall behind

The Loretto

Fox Creek School

Tallgrass National Prairie Preserve

Farm bins and grass - eastern Kansas

Jesse James Festival Rodeo

The 2008 Jesse James Festival and Rodeo in Kearney, Missouri

San Diego Trip

In September we traveled to San Diego for a weekend to see our favorite sailor. The weather was of course beautiful as we toured the Cabrillo Monument and Mount Soledad.

Saturday was really fun. We spent much of the day in the Temecula Valley wineries. It's northeast of San Diego and includes several wineries. We sampled several of them.

Sunday brought a trip to Tijuana. We drove down and toured by car a little, then parked and walked. No photos from that day - we elected to leave the cameras behind. Sailor and dad had fantastic tacos. Mom was a little skittish about eating at the hole in the wall restaurant. Our purchases included a cigar and some Christmas ornaments - big spenders!

Dog Park

Wonder Dog loves to go to the dog park with her "big sister" - the Big Dog and her buddy. This dog park is in Huntsville, Alabama. It includes an area specially for dogs under 25 lbs., which of course Wonder Dog was not about to stay in. She likes to run with the big dogs!

Farmer's Markets

The attraction of the farmer's market is interesting. If we wanted to, we could get all the same vegatables at the grocery store, but there is something fun about making the trip to the farmer's market. We choose to believe that we aer getting a better deal - better price or fresher product. But maybe its just more entertaining!

Kansas City Dragon Boat Festival

The weather semi-cooperated on Saturday for Hubby's Dragon Boat Festival. Rain on Thursday made for less than ideal water quality in Brush Creek on the Plaza and the race had to be rescheduled for next Saturday. Third time's a charm! Saturday was the reschedule date from the original date in June. But the festival part went off without a hitch!

There was a great turn-out, good food, and fantastic entertainment. It was terribly hot and humid, which made for good water sales! But, I think the children's part of the entertainment was my favorite. So precious! Sister and the two nieces volunteered and we so appreciate it. It takes many volunteers to pull it all together.

Hubby has worked hard putting the festival together. He has put his heart and soul into it, with proceeds going to victims of the earthquake that devastated China back in May.

I attended the MACE (Mid-America Association for Computers in Education) Conference on Thursday and Friday. Missouri's Teacher of the Year, Eric Langhorst, was the keynote speaker and is quite inspiring. Students who pass through his 8th grade history class have been truly blessed. What an amazing credit to the profession! It was good to spend the two days with teachers doing so many amazing things in their classrooms.

Not much on the schedule this week. Help one of the nieces prepare for a math test, work on plans for school, and make a couple of trips to the gym. Oh yeah, and stay cool.

Back to Reality

Why is it you have to rest up after a vacation? Maybe it is just that it is such a shock to the system to get back to the daily routine. No matter. We’re back and we’re rested. We’ve unpacked, done the laundry, and put the suitcases away. We logged about 4200 miles on the trip to Montana. And my rear end shows it! It was great fun, but it sure is good to be home. Wonder Dog is glad too!

We went to the Farmers Market in Overland Park yesterday. Us and about 1000 of our closest friends! We picked up Sister and away we went. Decided to have breakfast first at the Farm to Market Café on Santa Fe in downtown Overland Park. The breakfast strata was delish, as always, and the coffee was the blackest and hottest in town. It was a great way to start the day.

After perusing the produce at the farmers market, we picked up a watermelon, some sweet corn, peaches, candy onions, and yellow tomatoes. And…my favorite tomato preserves.
Sister got some berries and cut flowers.

Hubby grilled the corn last night, along with burgers. I sliced a couple of the yellow tomatoes and we had quite a feast. Grilling the corn brings out the sweetness and caramelizes some of the kernels. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. The tomatoes were pretty tasty, too.

The Sunday paper is filled with Back to School ads today. I love this time of year! Many people think of spring as a time of new beginning. That is what September does to me. It has since I was a little girl. If I breathe deep, I can still smell the sharpened pencils and new crayons. But, this means that I need to start getting ready for the new school year this week. Summer break will be over in a few short weeks. I finished my summer classes on Friday, so I am ready to start planning for my students. The planning is almost as much fun as the teaching! I’m ready!

July 11, 2008 – Billings to Ogallala

Another travel day. Up at the crack of 7:30 and on the road by 9:30. The only surprise today was when they charged us for a "senior breakfast" at the hotel this moring.

The rolling hills and mountains of Montana and Wyoming were really beautiful. We just really enjoyed the changing scenery. This is really cowboy country. It was extremely windy today which added some excitement to the drive.

We had not planned to make any stops, but as we neared the Little Big Horn National Historic Site we agreed that we should take a little time to see it.

In the 1980s, a range fire went through and cleared dense brush from the site, exposing the soil. The Government took the opportunity to bring in archeologists and there have since been several explorations of the site. Artifacts from the digs are at the visitor’s center.

There is also a national cemetery at the site, so of course I had to check it out too.

We used the Interstate system more today then yesterday and took advantage of the 75 MPH speed limits in Montana and Wyoming. But later in the day we opted for some 2-lane roads that were marked as scenic. We stopped by Castle Rock in Nebraska and then took US 26 on in to Ogallala tonight.

On the way we drove through an area of wheat harvesters working the fields after dark by headlights. We’ve really enjoyed our trek across the western US and seeing the custom cutters was a fitting cap on the trip.

July 10, 2008 – departure

We have not been setting an alarm most days, because one of us is usually awake pretty early. So we didn’t worry about it last night, thinking we’d get up and get going without it. So this was the first day that we both slept in. In spite of that we got going in pretty good time. The car was about half loaded last night so we just had a little bit of packing and loading to finish up today.

BB took us around the south end of Glacier National Park and out onto the Montana prairie. It was a nice drive through rolling hills that I assume are glacial moraine. The route she chose included only a little Interstate. Mostly we were on 2-land highways through grazing and farm land. The speed limits are pretty high in Montana. Wife proved that the Escape will do 90 when passing and seemed to have plenty more.

We are just hanging out in Billings tonight, ready to hit the road again tomorrow.

July 9 - Back to the National Park

Today was spent getting organized for our trip home. My, how we do spread out! When we had gotten a good handle on that task, we decided to take one more quick trip into Glacier. We didn’t want to miss anything! We decided to take little road-less-traveled branches off of Sun Road. The first one we took was closed about 2 or 3 miles in. But that was okay. We were in the forest and away from the crowds. We took another road farther down at the end of Lake McDonald. Again gravel, but that was nothing new to us on this trip. We just forged ahead.

Now, Wonder Dog loves the gravel roads. She sits-up in my lap the whole time, scanning the woods for critters. She spotted a deer which we think she believes is a long-legged, big dog. She is so funny! The drive was also a dead end, after about 6 miles. But well worth it. We saw damage from one of the forest fires; we think one of the 2003 fires. We also saw where the new growth was beginning. The sun was dappled on the ground from the trees. Quite breath-taking. We stopped and took photos several times on the drive. When we stopped at McDonald Creek for photos, we had to cut it a little short. The mosquitoes were thick! So, a couple of quick clicks and back in the car. We saw quite a lot of deer on our outing today. It was late afternoon/early evening and they were becoming active.

We left the park for the last time of this trip. We felt like we had explored just about all that is accessible by car. I think we both were a little sorry, but we are also looking forward to getting home.

We discussed altering our trip home to take in Yellowstone National Park. It is practically on the way home! Our better judgment took over and we decided that might be a good trip for next summer. So, Hubby, Wonder Dog, BB, and I will hit the road early in the morning and head to Billings, MT.

July 8 - North to Eureka

Today we decided to head north and west of the cabin. We drove to within a few miles of the US/British Columbia border. We were surrounded by national forests the entire way. It caused us to ponder. How does a forest get the national forest designation and what is the advantage of the designation? As we turned back south, we decided to follow Lake Koocanusa. Koo is for the Kootenai forest, can is for Canada, and usa is for USA! We followed the lake for 67 miles and there was more north of where we started! I am continually amazed by the number and size of the lakes in Montana. Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes, has nothing on Montana. They are so clear and a beautiful turquoise color.

We decided to take a National Forest road to cut back east. We had gone for about a mile on this one lane gravel road that we would have to follow for about 30 miles or so, when we questioned our judgment on this decision. Now, we tend to be somewhat adventurous (the sons would probably disagree ;) ) but this was a little too much. We turned around and went back to the highway! A little farther down the highway, we finally got to see a moose. She peeked out of the forest, saw us speeding down the highway, and turned and ran back to the safe haven of the forest. My trip was complete! I had seen a bear and a moose along with the deer, mountain goats, and long-horned sheep. I watched for bears our entire trip to the Smoky Mountains. I watched for moose our entire trip to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Again, confirmation that Montana has it all!

We then drove to Libby, MT. It looked like a nice little town. Bigger than many we have seen, but small enough to be quaint. The towns in the area are very pleasantly not too touristy. I can’t believe I got touristy past the spell-checker! From Libby we went over to Kalispell and then up to Columbia Falls.

We stopped in Columbia Falls at our favorite DQ. Now, if you remember, Hubby can’t pass up ice cream. But our purpose was two-fold. I also needed to check-in on my online class and do a little homework. And DQ has free internet access. Hubby worked on updating the blog while I did homework. By the time we both finished, we realized what a sight we must be. Two middle-aged people and their little dog, sitting in a mud and dust covered car, in a dark parking lot with their faces lit by the glow of computer screens! Fortunately, no one called the local police. Maybe Columbia Falls is so little that they don’t have any police. Not sure. All I know is we chuckled about how we must have looked all the way back to the cabin!

July 7, 2008 – Canada, Flora, and Fauna

Ehh? Today we went to Canada to see the Waterton side of the park. The two parks together are known as the Waterton – Glacier International Peace Park. I (Hubby) was please to learn of the key involvement of Rotary clubs on both side of the border in getting the governments of the two countries to create the joint park designation and then get recognition from the United Nations for the arrangement.

We set the alarm for a change so that we could get going, knowing that it was going to be a long day. We needed to get to the east side of the Park so we chose to take Going to the Sun Road through the Park rather than taking the highway around the south side. GSR is much shorter, but slower driving speeds. I think the drive time probably works out to be about the same, but GSR is a much more scenic drive. Anyway the four of us (Wife, Hubby, Wonder Dog, and our GPS, BB) got an early start for Canada.

BB really had a lot of trouble with the route from the east side of Glacier up to the Waterton entrance. She was obviously confused but refused to admit it. She mapped out a truly bizarre route which we chose not to follow. This of course really annoyed her.

I was surprised at how much Canadian culture we encountered right away. People really say “ehh” – some of them use it in every sentence. Of course there were plenty of visitors from the USA, but most of the license plates we saw were Canadian.

The Waterton Park environment is similar to Glacier, with notable differences. The glacial moraine (left behind with the retreat of ancient glaciers) is very pronounced in the eastern area. The park isn’t as lush as the western part of Glacier, but seems to have more precipitation then the eastern side of Glacier. Wildflowers were everywhere. In general they have really started to bloom since we got here, and the open areas in the Waterton park were really in bloom.

Waterton would be a terrific place to have a base camp/cabin and make a lot of day hikes. We drove the two main roads and walked a little, but since this was just a day trip didn’t have time to do a lot of hiking, but we saw a lot of trail heads. There is at least one trail that you can take between the two parks.

We encountered a lot of critters, both domestic and wild. The highway that we took from the USA north went through an open range area, so we had to slow down occasionally for cattle. In the Waterton Park we got up close and personal with a gang of hoofed creatures. I am still not sure whether they were mountain goats or big horned sheep. They don’t really look like the mountain goats at Logan Pass, and their horns are similar to the photos I’ve seen of big horn sheep. But their horns are not all that – big. Until notified otherwise I’m going to assume that they are just young big horn sheep.

Then there was the bear. Wife was really hoping to see a bear on this trip and she got her wish. Fortunately we were not so up close and personal with the bear. He/she was along the roadside and we stayed in the car. Wife’s camera was available and the bear was on my side so I grabbed it and shot away. Fun stuff.

On the way home we went back over GSR. I highly recommend driving this road as the sun is setting. There was practically no traffic and the last light of the day was really beautiful as we drove toward the setting sun.