Home Sweet Home!

We have been home for a few days now, feels good but I already miss the warm weather and site seeing. Oh well the year is not over yet.

San Jose

After a couple days exploring San Diego we headed off to San Jose and spent the day with Nichole and her family. It was a good day having a visit and relaxing. It was time to start heading home as things were starting to need to be taken care of.

Touring San Diego

Here I am just a tad nervous of the landing.
Larry in front of the Navy Ship "Midway" just prior to our touring the ship and all its glory. Totally Amazing!

Larry on Coronado Island overlooking the Bay to San Diego.

San Diego

Making our way to San Diego we went through this pass, past Devils Canyon and Devils Canyon II. On our way up to the look out tower we cam accross these strange sightings. We never saw anybody, saw some abandoned vehicles, (also this strange one). I am not sure if these are scare crows or mementos of some poor lost souls. The whole area reminded me of something horror movies were made from.Creepyyyy.

Yuma

We had a busy day today touring the Yuma Territorial Prison. When we were done there we slipped across the border into Mexico, had a few Cervesas done some browsing through the shops in Mexico, it was a great afternoon. Made it back to Yuma to put our feet up to relax a bit now.

Tombstone Arizona

All the lumber used for shoring beams are in perfect condition. They don't rot because of the perfect weather conditions in the mine. Appaerntly insects & such don't like being so deep in the earth.

Well Tombstone was awsome. We took a carriage ride on an old Stage Coach, Took a mine tour, (can't believe we did that after yesterdays experience) we watched live performances of some famous wild west gun fights. Spent some time walking around the town taking in the sights. No wonder there were so many fight...the main street had more than 106 Saloons, the popular brothel was something like 6 blocks by 2 blocks in size. That was just one place. The ladies of the night had to be registered and pay a licence fee. Quite the history in this "little town". It was well worth seeing.

Colossal Cave in Tucson AZ

What a visit!!!! I would do this a few times it is so amazing. The temp stays about 70 degrees all the time in the cave and at times we were 13 stories below ground, truely marvelous. At one point as were behind the group, ( we were bringing up the rear the whole tour) taking a photo op picture we had something weird happen. Larry took a picture and went to take another as he went to take it he was waving and trying to move the camera around so he could see me, and he snapped the picture telling me something was wrong with the camera setting, then he said never mind there you are now and took another picture. He thought the one picture he at least had my feet lol. We hurried on our way to catch up with the group and finished our tour, visiting other parts of the park. When we were back in the room we got talking about it and Larry jokingly mentioned the ghostly blob blocking me out of the photo......so we got looking through pictures and it is kind of freaky how you CANNOT see me at all in the photo. 1st picture I'm in...2nd picture I am not in (taken in the same minute) 3rd picture I am in (taken the next minute). Larry thought I was joking about ghosts being down there until I showed him the photos....Where O Where has Connie gone? The Hohokam Indians were the first people to live in the caves over 1000 yrs ago, around 900A.D.

Old.....

There is some very old equipment and tools around this old ghost town.

Apache Junction

Today we went to Apache Junction to visit the Ghost Town of Goldfield Az. The views were amazing. I don't think I would ever tire of looking out over the land scape at all. Superstition Mountains are something else to look at. We should have went out early in the day and taken a jeep tour. Next time I will have to plan that. We did however go down into the underground mine...and I am very grateful there were no scorpions hitching a ride on me when we emerged.

Phoenix Arizona

After leaving Boise, Id. we drove a ways and took a bit of a leg stretch at Twin Falls, Id. There we looked at this amazing Bridge overlooking Snake River. What awesome views. It was a long day making it the rest of the way to Vegas. Very long straight boring highway. Once in Vegas we stayed three night there staying down on Freemont street taking in all of the activity there and trying not to lose too much. We were there for Super bowl so it was a busy week-end in Vegas. The only show we were able to take in was a Gordy Brown comedy act and he was very good. Three days there is very tiring, we could hear the party almost all night long from our room. It is going to take me a while to recover. We stopped and did some sight seeing at the Hoover Dam on our way to Phoenix. It is quite amazing. Apparently the water level was 200 ft. higher only 30 years ago. Really makes you wonder. Most of our trip so far we have been able to see mountains, even all through the desert. Mind you most of them have been very "desolate" looking. They are really something to see even if it does make me think of what it may probably look like on the moon. Today we found a laudry mat and now we are going to see what there is to do in Phoenix. I imagine we can get into a fair bit of trouble as Phoenix and surrounding area is populated by approx. 2.5 million people. I must not forget ...........It was a beautiful, sunny, warm 19c, with just a touch of breeze today. Couldn't ask for more perfect weather.

On our way to Boise today we travelled through a little town called ......Baker City. It is a quaint little city with alot of history and old buildings. There are alot of antique shops, but most seemed to be closed for the season. It seemed very very quiet while we snooped around a bit. We did find a quiet little sandwich shop to stop in warm up and have a little lunch. For more info on Baker City visit www.historicbakercity.com .

We have taken in Dinner & a Movie tonight & now ready for a good nights sleep. Tomorrow we will check out Boise and see what it has to offer.

The Start of Our Trip

We Travelled a little farther to spend the night @ Yakima Washington. Tomorrow we head on out to Boise to see what else awaits us. We stopped to stretch our legs & check out the Snoqualimie Falls. This is one of Washington's most popular scenic attractions. The Snoqualmie River falls 270 ft to the 65 ft deep pool below. This is 100 ft higher than Niagra Falls. In 1890's an engineer named Charles H Baker saw a dream and in 1898 construction on the power plant began.

We started out from Surrey and by lunch decided to try a place called ....well you see. Larry ordered a classic Bob's Burger, and it was one huge burger. Will have to remember to ask Bob if he started a new franchise and forgot to mention it. Just kidding Bob. This was in Tulalip Washington on the I 5.

Missed Wolf

Here is a picture of that Beautiful wolf we kept pace with at Christmas time. I really wished we wouldn't have messed up our photo op. I would say "Maybe next time" but who are we kidding this is a once in a life time. I cropped one and it looks better, He was an amazing looking charcoal grey wolf, what more can I say....

Pit Stop Back Home

We made it home last night. Surrey, Burnably, and Coquitlam area to Vancouver Island, then back to the Surrey (and area) again leaves for a very busy schedule. We have a meeting at Nik's housing on Feb 1st, ( he wants our of housing into his own apartment with a room mate). So we have just under 2 weeks to get some things done. A couple of book work things for Larry and of course Tonka and I both have hair appointments, lol. Get some quilting done and organized so that I can bring a bit of the hand quilting along.

When I was at sister Patty's I had some fun trying to teach that young nephew of mine (Jordan) a bit of cooking and baking, he does very well, I was telling him he is the new chef Ramsey in training. Last time I was there he was also helping me cook so who knows......

We had a good little visit with all of our nieces & nephews (and 2 of the great nieces) who lived there. Well except for one nephew, don't know where he was. I will keep you posted once we start on our new little vacay........

Vancouver Island

We made it to the island the night before last. The sun is trying to shine after pouring down rain since we got here. I don't think the sun has much chance though, the clouds are moving in rather quickly.
We had a good visit with Dorinda and the kids. Nik spent some time with us also, although he did spend the week-end going to the school to do some school projects on both Sat. and Sun. That is commitment for sure. Keep up the good work Nicolas. Dorinda is happy she is over the hump ( as she calls it ) with her program. She only has the dementia part of her program left, which she appears to be fairly confident about, then she will have her practicum to do. I believe she said she was going to do it at the Langley Hospital.
Tonka was not sure whether to be upset or not about being left behind, but then he does love to play with the kids so he was a tad confused. I guess we will find out if he was ticked or not when we get back.

Happy New Year!

Already Jan 5th...where is the time going lol. JK not much time left and then we are heading to see Dorinda & the kids. Kathy & Emily and then over to see Dad. Have been awful busy trying to get all of this electronic stuff up to snuff so that Larry can be mobile with his work at least electronically. And creating blogs and trying to clean my PC, quilting meeting tomorrow and then leave next a.m. But I will totally relax as I am having my pedicure in the morning.