Day four...

Is it just me or is the weather just plain crazy lately?  Yesterday it was so beautiful with the sun pouring in everywhere in the house.  You just couldn't go out because it was so darn windy and chilly.  I enjoyed the sun anyway.  Today gray, sprinkley, windy and cold again.  When I'm a suppose to get my garden planted?  I'm starting to wonder.

At least I have these wonderful gerbers to look at from Julie's shop.  Just the right dose of pick me up while working on some quick projects.

I think life would be perfect for me if I had bright colorful flowers along with an entire wall of south facing windows in the house.

One can dream.

Well, on to day four.

We made a trip to see the San Jacinto Monument and to spend the day with our dear friends Julie, Mark, Mary Kate and Nicholas.  I've been to the monument before, so the highlight of the day for me was to see our dear friends that we haven't seen in a few years.  I just about cried.  The kids have grown up so much and they are just too darn cute!

The kids were inseparable the whole time we were going through the monument.  Everyone wanted to take the elevator to the observation floor to see the view.  But gosh darn it, the elevator was out of service that day.  You know I was totally bummed, not.  Not a fan of heights you know.  So all was good for me.  I must admit that I gave in and was willing to go up to the top with Glenn, Julie and the rest of the crew before we found out that the elevator was "broke".

I think it was the first time I actually appreciated all the treasures and artifacts in the museum to tell the truth.  Maybe it's age but you get a real sense of what people these people back in the day to make sure they lived in a great land.  It was very interesting to remember that the Battle of San Jacinto only took 18 minutes to secure the Republic of Texas.  Brave men I tell you.

The monument is 567ft. tall and taller than the Washington Monument. The star is constructed in 3d form so that the 5 points can be seen from any angle.  

And the Texas Cordova Shellstone that the entire monument is made out of is absolutely beautiful!  Well, at least on the outside. Wouldn't that be gorgeous around a fireplace or used somewhere in building a house.

One can dream about that also.  :)

You have to walk around the entire base to read about and see the engraved panels telling of the history of Texas.  Gorgeous!  That is craftsmanship.

Makes one wonder why things like this aren't made now a days.  I've got my thoughts on that.  

I think society is lacking the passion, love for country and bravery that once was in this country and the craftsmanship that use to pour through individuals blood back in the days.

Then there is the Battleship Texas.

So truly awesome.  The only surviving ship that served in both World Wars.

Very humbling to be beside that massive boat.  Makes one appreciate our military even more, even the past years.

After all the sight seeing and catching up with one another, of course everyone was starving.  So down the road to a BBQ joint that Mark goes to frequently when he is down in this part of town (LaPorte) for work.  All I have to say is go to Tony's BBQ whenever possible!  You won't be disappointed.  It was so darn hard to decide what to eat.  I eventually picked a mixed meat plate with LOTS of fried okra on the side.  I think they thought I was weird asking for a double order.  And the loaded BBQ baked potatoes!  I took a taste of Mom's and man was it freakin' awesome!  Mary Kate and Em were inseparable again and I don't think they really tasted their food much because of all the talking they were still doing with catching up with one another.  Before we realized, the lunch crowd had long since left and we had all been sitting there chatting and eating for the longest time without noticing what time it was.  

The day had to come to an end but plans were made to go over Mark and Julie's later in the week for dinner and more catch up time.  So all was still good.  Miss those guys something terrible!

Later at home there were some serious naps being taken.  Long day and full tummies you know.

More later!

Phew!...

(please excuse another "re-post".  things just aren't posting like it should be.)

What a busy little weekend it was around here.  The girls and I were busy helping Julie out where ever we could to get her shop, Botanica, ready for her grand opening on Saturday.  It was a blast!  Em helped make May bouquets, which she absolutely loved.  We may have a florist on our hands in the future!  Saturday we headed down to help in any way we could.  It was a good turn out.  Julie's shop is really going to take off.  She just has a wonderful way with making flowers look awesome, but different than everyone else's way of doing things.  A breath of fresh air.  I couldn't help but buy a couple of topiaries for the mantle, some cards, and gerber daisies.  It's such a stinkin' cute shop!  You can't help but walk out of there with a few things to brighten your day with.

After all of that, Sunday was suppose to be a quiet day around here.  Right.  I did find some time to finish some last minute Mother's Day gifts that I had been trying to crank out to mail on time.  At least that got accomplished.  Still no progress made on the purple sweater.  As you can tell above there was some great hooky time going on along with the M&M's, the Ipod jamming and cotton yarn spread out every where.  Things were going well until after bath time for the littlest one.  There was a trip to urgent care because I could just tell she was getting the same crud as Em and we needed to get medicine to head off the worst of it all.  Thank goodness the medicine kicked in fast and a real drama was averted with Brenna.

There was a quick trip down to Julie's shop today for a few more of her wonderful flower cards she makes herself to send off for Mother's Day.  She wouldn't let me out of the shop without taking some roses with me.  She said they were past their prime.  Yeah, right.  I didn't see anything wrong with them.  I've never had this many roses all at the same time before.  Gorgeous!!!  I must admit there will be fresh flowers in the house more often now that Julie is down the hill.  We must help with the floral economy whenever possible.  Especially with Julie owning the shop!

Okay, now for some more tid bits of the trip.  

As told, we started out waaaaaay early the next morning so that we could get through Amarillo as early as possible.  We got out of Lamar, Co around 6ish and the sun was barely coming up.  We could see all these red flashing lights along the horizon south of town but couldn't figure out what in the world they were, until we got just a few miles from them.  It was a wind farm.  Apparently 108 wind turbines to be exact.  You should have heard some of the "suggestions" from my crew when they were trying to guess what the lights might be from.  Alien landing strip, cattle disco, etc.  You know not to ask.  That was about the only thing to look at while driving through this part of the state.

(not my pic)

Continuing south into Oklahoma, we came to Boise City, Ok.  What are the odds that we live near Boise, Id and we would be going through Boise City, Ok?  The girls got a kick out of that because when you come into to town all the highways feed into the center of town and you must circle around the county courthouse to get to the other end of road that you need to be on to continue your journey.  Just look at the green sign in front of the courthouse.  The girls asked Glenn to go around in circles a couple of times because they thought it would be fun.  Glenn didn't go for that.

(not my pic)

Finally we crossed over the state line into Texas and you automatically started to smell the cattle yards.  It's amazing how you cross state lines and the terrain changes with the signs.  Did the surveyors do this on purpose to make sure each state had it's own look about it?  I'm wondering.  We started noticing alot of smooshed jack rabbits along the side of the highway also, which did not sit well with Em.  Alot of moaning and groaning about that.  And once Brenna saw the Texas sign at the state line we started to hear "Are we at Oma's yet?".  Yeah, awesome!  11 hours of that.  She just didn't understand how freakin' long it takes to drive across Texas.  Poor thing.  It was torture.

The 3 hour trip to Amarillo wasn't bad being it was mostly done in the wee early morning hours.  We knew we were making progress we saw The Big Texan on the interstate and our turn off for the smaller highway was just a mile away.

(not my pic)

The Big Texan is huge and it has awesome food.  We had been there before when we were stationed in New Mexico and had to try it when out for one of our shopping trips to Amarillo.

They are famous for the 72oz. Big Texan Steak.  If you can eat at all during the allotted time (1hr), it's free.  Not for me.  All I can picture is John Candy in "the Great Outdoors" taking on the Old 96er.  Makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.  That movie is a riot!  Just about peeing my pants just thinking about that movie!  Eating steak and wetting you pants.  Nothing better!

(not my pic)

Anyhoo...

It was just our freakin' luck that we hit Fort Worth about 3ish.  You know we've not been in the area for a loooooong time because we thought we would miss rush hour at this time.  Yeah, go ahead and laugh. It took us about an hour to get 10-15 miles, over some high rise ramps (yippeee) and another hour to get through the south of Fort Worth before we hit I-45.  I thought I was going to have to get Glenn to stop at the gas station to get a beer wrapped in a brown paper bag.  You Texans know what I'm talking about.  Everyday after work!  Once we got onto 45 there was much more to look at.  Lovely trees, wildflowers, old ranches, etc.  Very nice.  At least there were bluebonnets to look at all along the way to see after getting about an hour down the road.  

Dear ole' Sam Houston was a beautiful sight to see because we knew we were only 1/2 hour from our turn off to go east and 1 full hour before we hit Mom's house.  

More on dear Sam later.

But you know after seeing Sam things were not to be smooth sailing.  There was construction up the wazoo in Conroe with delayed us a wee bit more.  FAB!!!!  And it was getting dark.  It gets dark way sooner than it does here in Idaho.  And it made for a most wonderful trip through the big expanse of piney woods along the rest of our trip.  Pitch black I tell you.

We finally reached Mom's house (14 hour trip).  It was all I could do to give Mom huge hugs and kisses, help unload the truck, get the girls cleaned up, shower myself, take a few Tylenol and hit the sack.  Heaven!

Day three was awesome.  We went no where.  There was no getting into a car for me.  We just stayed around the house and waited for Kimmy, Abe and little Alex to come over and spend the day with us.  That girl got so many hugs and sugars from everyone.  She's just so stinkin' cute!!!  I'm not biased you know.   And of course see all of the wonderful neighbors that we haven't see for a long time, such as Mrs. Myers.  You could just squeeze her.

I'm tired just remembering all of that.  I need a break for the rest of the day just to get ready for day four! I just remembered that I forgot to tell everyone that I will be "receiving" a brand new nephew in August!  Mom couldn't wait and had to call us while we were in Cheyenne to share the news.  There was alot of WOHOOing going on in the truck then.  More on that later also.

Until next time!

The first day...

I'm going to fore warn everyone that the pics on this post are not ones that I would pee my pants over.  Don't get me wrong.  I love traveling across our country, but after seeing basically the same scene for the majority of the day, it bites.

We left very early in the morning from Idaho because we wanted to be out of Salt Lake City before the morning rush hour.  It's horrible.  Plain and simple.

So by the time the sun was peeking over the mountains we were almost in Wyoming.  There was snow every where and it was chilly.  No pictures through the east part of Utah because of the bad lighting.  It was gorgeous though, from what we could see at that point.  By 9ish we were in Wyoming and ready for breakfast.  So a quick stop for gas and a stop at McD's was welcome by all.  Someone even had to go back out to the truck to get their Ipad because McD's had free WiFi.  Can you guess who?  I was seriously rolling my eyes.  Did not see the need in it.  But apparently it is important to see what was going on with the NHL at the moment.  The girls just thought it was cool that there was a real cowboy saddle set up for them to sit on and try.  Only in Wyoming I guess.

Well, back in the truck and down the road again.  The snow had come through just 2 days before and everything was still a blinding white.  Even with my sunglasses on, I got a mild headache.  It's just the place to go snow blind you know.  Could you imagine looking at all that white with the sun beating down on it the majority of winter?  I'm not sure I could.  At least the interstate was clear.  Awesome job Wyoming Highway Dept.!  We were amazed at how many snow break fences there were all along the interstate for the majority of the state.  Apparently they work well.  And let's not mention all of the gates along side the highway that come down and close things off when the snow blows so much to cause blizzard conditions.  Apparently that happens quite often also.  At least you get a warning with lights, signs, etc. a mile before so you can turn around and go back to the last town behind you.

The Green River that flows through Green River really is green.  Weird.  Not sure if I would want to dip the toes in there though.  Lots of railroads and mining there.  Kind of a neat old west looking town though.  We passed the Continental Divide twice and only saw a glimpse of the Great Basin.  It's mostly hidden by the hills that surround it on all sides.  Only a couple of breaks from the highway to see a very quick glimpse.  This is truly the Old West, open range, cowboy area.

It was only until we got near Laramie that the snow began to break, passed the Medicine Bow Mtns, that we began to see the more hilly terrain and more traffic.  I must apologize for not taking pictures during the last leg of the first day's trip.  We got into Colorado and down into Denver around rush hour and it was not possible to snap pics while helping with the navigating.  It was gorgeous though to see the mountains of Rocky Mountain Nat. Park.  It brought back memories of our one and only camping trip there with Brendon in the fall of '92.  Let's just say even though we planned our trip out well (we thought), we were not prepared to freeze our tails off the first night at 9pm.  We broke camp and headed out for warmer accommodations.

Anyhoo, it also brought back memories of Glenn and I getting married in the Denver area and our time at tech school in the AF.  Things surely have changed there.  Everything is much more spread out, people every where, traffic everywhere, etc.  Denver has really grown.  Still gorgeous with the hills behind it though.

After Denver we traveled through the SE corner of Colorado so that we could cut down to Amarillo.  Let's just say nothing prepared me for the "nothingness" that is there.  I always thought that North Dakota was boring in the western part of the state, then the part of Wyoming we had just been through.  But SE Colorado has them beat.  Flat.  That's it except for a few cows and ranch gates you see every once in awhile.  And then to go through that at the end of the day kills you.  Especially when you have been on the road, in a car for 18hrs that day.  I'll save you the expletives.  Getting to the hotel finally was so freakin' awesome.  We checked in, got something to eat, showered and hit the sack.  Couldn't tell you about anything else other than we got up the next morning and left at 5:30 so that we could get to Amarillo in 3hrs.

So, totally bored you yet?  Wow, you're tough.  Well, we will see about tomorrow's post.  Until then...