We're Home

Hello,
We made it home safe and sound Monday night about 10 o'clock. Everything was in good shape here. Now it's time to get back to our "normal" routine. We are really looking forward to Amy, Vince, Kate, and Abby moving to Lubbock, and wishing them a safe trip on their move.
Signing off for now.
With love,
Mimi

Grand Canyon Pictures

This is from the first observation point. We drove 25 miles around the south rim of the canyon, stopping at several observation points. You can see the Colorado River from some of the points as we move along the rim. You can't see it here. It was hazy today. I read that the haze is air pollution from as far as Los Angeles. I tried to zoom in on some of the pictures, and I don't think the quality is as good, but maybe it will give you some idea of the canyon.

These people are stalking an elk that we saw along the roadside. I thought it was pretty funny.

Charles and his shadow.
I took this through some tree limbs. I consider it to be a masterpiece.

Sunday--week 3 or 4--can't remember

Hello from Winslow Arizona,
Remember the Eagles' song, "Take It Easy"--"standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona", well, that's where we are, but not standing on a corner. The Grand Canyon was, again, awesome. I tried to take pictures of its different views, but I just couldn't capture the enormity of it on camera. We will drive to Alamogo, NM tomorrow and then be home on Tuesday. I am REALLY, REALLY, REALLY ready to be home. Hope things are going well for everyone. Needless to say, I miss everyone and Annie. Amy, I hope your packing is going easy (or as easy as packing can). Do you plan to move yourselves or have a company do it?
I'm going to download pictures from my camera now--it will probably be tomorrow morning before I get them posted. I'm not sure what time it is here--some parts of Arizona don't observe daylight savings time, and some of them do.
Love,
Mimi

Pictures

This was taken on Wednesday--I'm driving through one of the redwoods. Matt, we have the picture you requested; however, the disk is in Grandpa's camera, and we can't retrieve it until we get home.
Bridal Veil Falls at Yosemite. Yosemite Falls is probably a little taller--it has a vertical drop of 2,425 feet, but it is dry in August.
A granite monolith in Yosemite
This is El Capitan. It is the largest monolith in the world--5 times larger than Gilbralter and 3 times taller than the Empire State Building. Like all the others in Yosemite, it is made of granite. There were several rock climbers on it when this picture was taken--maybe if you enlarge it, you can see them.

Another view of El Capitan
This river is at the base of El Capitan. There were lots of swimmers there.
A sequoia in Yosemite. Sequoias are a little shorter and bigger around than Coastal Redwoods.
Sequoia--too tall to get in one picture
Sequoia

Group of sequoias

Sequoia again Gorge before entering Death Valley--notice lack of vegetation
This was taken at Furnace Creek--the palm trees were a rare sight--generally, there was no vegetation--you can see the white in the background--I think that is sand. The temp here was 117 degrees.

See the elevation--this was the only golf course we saw. Most of Death Valley was barren. We drove through it for probably about 90 miles, but it is much larger than that.

Saturday--Week 3

Hello Everyone--We're back online again.
We are in Kingman, Arizona. We spent Thursday night in Yosemite National Park (have a story to tell about that), and we spent last night in Mammoth Lakes, CA-- a few miles from Yosemite on the "East Side". Neither places had wireless internet, but the motel last night did have resident bears--when we came in last night from eating--about 10 o'clock, there was a bear by where we parked. We didn't see it until we got out of the car. It was just a few feet away from Charles, but, it loped away when it saw us. We asked about it at breakfast this morning, and the motel owner said several bears had a routine route every night, where they checked out the dumpsters. Anyway, Yosemite was awesome. Today, we drove through Death Valley--the highest temperature my car recorded was 117 degrees. We are going to the Grand Canyon tomorrow and then head home. It is looking like we will be home some time on Tuesday--that's only a day later than we projected. We have logged a lot of miles and are ready to be home. It's 6:45 here, and we need to eat and do laundry. I will try to post pictures later tonight.
Love,
Mimi
P.S. Drew--we really did like the coast--we stopped at Tillamook and got cheese curds; however, we have eaten most of them--wish I had that Tillamook Mudslide ice cream right now. We had a wonderful time in Portland. Thanks for showing us around. Hope things are going well for you.

Wednesday--Week 3

beach on northern coast of Oregon
Oregon's beaches are rockier and have more trees than the ones we have seen in California.
more Oregon coastline
This was about midway of Oregon's coastline. There was lots of fog, and it was difficult to get pictures--especially landscapes

more coastline California redwoods--they are huge. The coastal redwoods are the tallest of the three types of redwoods.
Note the sign says 320 feet long. It was, too. That's longer than an eleven-man football field. This tree had fallen, but its roots are still intact, and it is a living tree, even though it is horizontal. It has smaller redwoods growing from it. They said the smaller ones nourish the big one through photosynthesis, and the big one nourishes the smaller ones. I thought that was pretty neat.
Just to show the size of the bottom of one of the big redwoods.

Hello Everyone,

It's 12:20, and I'm still waiting for the video to upload. We are in Ft. Bragg, CA and plan to go to Yosemite National Park tomorrow, then SE to the Grand Canyon, then head home. The coast is just beautiful--at least we think it is--couldn't see much of it--it was really foggy until this afternoon, and then the fog rolled in again tonight. We are going down the coastline on HWY 1. We will follow it for a little longer, then go SSE to Yosemite. HWY 1 is right on the coast and very scenic. Will try to write more tomorrow.

Love,

Mimi

I thought you might like to watch the waves and hear them, so here they are.

Tuesday--week 3

Hello Everyone,
We left Portland yesterday about 2:00 and have been driving down the Oregon coast. It has been a pretty drive--most of it right by the ocean. We are in Brookings, Oregon, tonight and plan to get an early start and see the redwoods tomorrow. We're probably less than 20 miles from California. We took quite a few pictures today, and maybe I will get them posted tomorrow--I'm tired tonight. Hope things are going well for everyone.
Love,
Mimi

Sunday--week 3

Drew's apartment--2nd floor Charles and Drew walk toward the restaurant. This was once a home or an inn or something. Teddy Roosevelt stayed here, and they have a Roosevelt room.
On the grounds of the restaurant, looking over Columbia Gorge
Inside the restaurant--we take pictures of each other Does Drew look hungry?

Look at those flowers--we look pretty good, too.
Charles and Drew inspect a bridge.
We could walk over and take pictures of this falls, but it's not the "big un" that we were looking for.
Taken while we were sitting on the waterfront. These people were going for a canoe ride--notice the outrigger canoes on the right side of the picture.
Hostas growing in a bed outside a building on the waterfront.

Hello Everyone,

Still in Portland. We picked up Drew shortly before lunch and drove east to the Multnomah Falls area. We stopped at a restaurant called Vista Point. We just saw the sign on the road and drove up into the area--it was amazing. I am including pictures. We continued in search of the big falls--said to be the 2nd largest in the US. We stopped at one fall area and took some pictures. We think that Angel Falls is the large one, but we stopped there and the hike was 2 1/2 miles. Drew needed to get back in order to go to work, so they didn't go up to the falls. This afternoon, Charles and I went to the Willamette Riverfront, ate the most delicious ice cream I've ever eaten (Tillamook Mudslide) and sat at the Yacht Basin and watched the boats. We stopped by S ubway for supper then went to a place Drew had recommended. It overlooked Portland and surrounding areas. We especially enjoyed the drive up--those houses are built literally on the side of the hillside--hope no one who sleepwalks lives there.

Becky, hope you found the missing duck. The last time it was missing, we found it lodged in the intake to the filter. The filter wasn't working right then, either. Watch your arm; Charles said the suction was really strong. I hope Kamryn remembers us when we get back.

We plan to have lunch with Drew tomorrow and then leave for the coast. We sure have enjoyed our time here in Portland.

By the way, I found these articles interesting:

ya'll --Origin: Often incorrectly attributed to the contraction of "you + all," the word actually originated from the fusing of "ya + all." The kind of fella who would say ya'll for the first time would not be enunciating a clean and crisp "you" in his daily speech. "You" wasn't in his spoken vocabulary, but "ya" was. Now, try to say "ya all." It is actually not easy to do as two separate words. To say it with a normal cadence, it already almost sounds like ya'll, but with the slightest stutter. "Ya all" quite naturally slips into the familiar pronoun we all use. Ya + all = ya'll. When you look at it that way, the placement of the apostrophe after the "a" makes sense. Alternately, you + all = y'all. However, the ya + all transition more naturally illustrates the origin of "ya'll." "You all" is cumbersome, although that is usually how yall is explained to uninitiated Yankees, whose experience with "ya" is often limited. "You all" just doesn't lead the the inevitable ya'll that "Ya all" does. However, y'all is an accepted alternate spelling. http://urbandictionary.com/

ya'll--The correct spelling for the commonly misspelled word, y'all. The word originates in the south-eastern United States and is a contraction formed from the words 'ya' and 'all,' the 'ya' being the short-form of you. The apostrophe is placed after the a because in contractions, letters are removed from the second word, and thus, y'all is gramatically incorrect, leaving ya'll as the proper method of spelling the word. http://urbandictionary.com/

Y'all. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved August 03, 2008, from Reference.com website: http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Y--The ye+aw origin may be apparent in a modern-day variation of y'all whereby some put the apostrophe after the 'a' (e.g. ya'll). This suggests that y'all could be a contraction for ya all. This is illustrated in the phrase "Ya'll come back now, ya hear!" in a recent Best Western advertisement.

There does seem to be some controversy about the correct spelling--some say ya'll is incorrect. Being an EAST Texan, who is well known for her slaughter of the English language,--pronunciation and otherwise (just ask Lori), I will stick with ya'll--I just like it better.

I will stop now and download pictures from my camera--don't have that many pictures today.

Love,

Mimi