Spokane

We have arrived at the tres elegant Davenport. We are planning to stay inside until after the soccer game, then check out the river park and find dinner. We are craving pizza. After four days in Yellowstone, we were craving food, any food, but luckily we spent yesterday with Janet Cruz, who is all about food. She also took us to swim in the river, which was lovely. It was over 100 degrees there.

Today we drove through Waukon also, and stopped by the Appel farm and met Seth and delivered cherries to him. He is raising organic, grass-fed beef.

My favorite things so far (not in order):
Route 12 through the Idaho panhandle.
Waiting for Old Faithful at the Old Faithful Inn outdoor bar area.
Grand Teton, the whole thing, every minute.

Stormy Weather

Rosie and I went to the lake this morning.  It rained all day yesterday and was threatening today.  The waves had piled up more rocks on our beach than I have ever seen before.  They were almost level with the wall.  It looks like it would be a steep climb down to the water.  While we were there, I did a little cleaning upstairs.  And made a nice fire.  It really helped the damp cold.

I did not take my camera?!

Chiara

I think so far the girls are enjoying their trip. They will have to leave the farm in Sicily earlier than planed, on the 27 instead of the 30, as apparently the owners are having some legal issues. They will spend a few more days in Sicily then take the ferry to Naples and stay there for a few days before going to Rome and then Umbria.

Lake House looks soooo good and clean!

Did you hire pro's to clean?  It looks terrific.  Your bedroom beds all up, picnic tables out on lawn floors cleaned,  really nice.  Thanks!

I emptied 2 drawers from the chest in liv rm,  I put the twin sheets  and pillow cases on top (new) shelf, the doubles on the second shelf.  Couldn't open the 3rd drawer.  I put hand towels and bath towels in the top shelf of the bottom cabinet.   Thought we would leave the beach towels in the original place. 

The shelves look good.  You all did a good job painting them.

Ashwani and Noah must be with you now, in the Tetons, Right?

Road trip: day 7

Sorry for the lack of posts the last few days. We have been out of range as of late. After we left Greensburg  Kansas,we made our way to New Mexico. We first drove to Santa Fe, where we wondered around and looked at old things. After we had our fill of Santa Fe, we drove to bernalillo, which is just outside of Albuquerque. We spent the night in a KOA. There were 2 rooms. One room had a queen bed and the other had 2 bunk beds. Sushi and I slept on the top bunks, mom and Hannah shared the queen. We had the bathrooms. They were remarkably clean. We had a really good dinner that night, at a place called the range cafe. We had a bit of trouble getting there. The lady at the front desk of the KOA told mom to go right out of the campground then go right and go right again. She said it was behind the campground. Somehow, we ended up in a not so nice neighborhood. It turns out, the lady didn't mean the first right, which was a dirt road. We found it eventually, which I'm glad of because it was really good. It was Mexican food. The next day we drove into Albuquerque to have breakfast with Susi's teacher and her kids. I had pancakes and they were delicious. The kids were super adorable. It was a nice lunch. I'm writing this on a full stomach and I'm finding very difficult to be funny. After breakfast we went to the zoo, they had a baby hippo. Then went to petrified forest, it was very pretty. Then we drove to Chinle. We got there very late. It was very creepy. At the hotel, we accidentally befriended a stray dog. We named her Hortense. She liked to lay in the parking lot so cars couldn't leave. In the morning, we met our guide, Leander, who took us into canyon de Chelly. It was a five hour jeep tour. It was very interesting. After Chinle, we moved on to Moab, where we stayed at a place called Moab Under Canvas. We went glamping which is glamorous camping. Our tent had a misting system and a fan. It also had four beds and a chest of drawers. It was very pleasant and we had nice views. This morning we drove around arches national park. It was crazy hot out. We did some very lovely arches and went on some walks. Then we drove to where we are now, which is grand junction, Colorado. It hot here too. So that's what we've been up to. Until next time!

Chiara Graduates

There were 23 graduates.  Chiara was one of several speakers.  It was a lovely graduation.  Now she is in Sicily,  'woofing'.  More on my flickr account.

Road Trip Update: Day 4 Kansas

  Greetings, from Greensberg, Kansas!! We have stopped here for the night. It is not what I would call  a happening place. There is more to do in Churchville. We are staying in a new best western and I gotta say, it's a nice one. Today was slightly less eventful than yesterday. We spent the morning driving to Leavenworth, KS. There we found J.J. Bacom's grave, in the Leavenworth National Cemetery. It was a beautiful cemetery that is very well kept. It also had a great view of the town. We saw more of the cemetery than we had intended to due to the various winding roads located within. It did mean we got to see the VA hospital, I don't really know how we ended up there, but it was nice. After we Leavenworth, we drove here. Our goal is Albuquerque, but that's like 12 hours from Leavenworth and we weren't gonna do that. We stopped in Wichita to buy groceries, because mom said we have to have vegetables tonight. So, we're all having a salad. We went to the whole foods market, which was filled almost entirely with healthy food. Sad face. Wichita was fancier than we were expecting and also bigger. Lots of big fancy stores that we would only see if we went to eastview mall. But They didn't have a trader joe's. Our GPS, which we decided to name Patrice, wanted to only take us on the interstate, but mom googled mapped it before we left and found a route that was at least 2 hours shorter. It took Patrice about 45 minutes to agree to our route. She would recalculate every minute or so and try to get us to make a legal u-turn. It did not go her way. When she finally agreed, the estimated time of travel to Albuquerque went from about 11 hours to 9 hours. Tomorrow we should reach Albuquerque, where we will be sort of camping. Then the next morning we will meet up with Susi's teacher. So long for now!!

Eggs and Bacom: Road trip update day 3

We enjoyed meeting the Bacoms very, very much. They were welcoming, very funny, and Ceal, (hand on Jo's shoulder), who hosted, is a really good cook.

Galesburg

Illinois weather

Bacom graves in Abingdon--Susi found them!

More weather

Camels of Avon, Illinois

Hannibal from the Best Western

The Mississippi

Road Trip Update: Days 1 and 2

   Hey gang! Jo here, giving you a day to day update of our journey out West. Yesterday we made our first stop in Cleveland Ohio, where we met up with a friend of Hannah's from York. We hit a crazy thunderstorm along the way. We had to drive with our hazards on for a little way, but we weren't the only ones. It wasn't a long storm, but it was nasty. The storm happened relatively early on in our trip, so no shenanigans had happened yet. Cleveland from Brockport is a 4 hour trip. During this time, Hannah and Susi worked on their Spanish accents and we all played a nice hour long game of MASH. When we finally made it to Cleveland, we met Hannah's friend, Katie.  We went to a very popular sandwich place called Melt. They make specialty grilled cheese sandwiches. They were delicious. While eating we watched Ecuador and Switzerland play soccer in the women's world cup. Switzerland won, but it was close. 10-1. While that was happening, the US was playing Sweden. It ended in a tie. I don't know why they weren't showing that game, but they weren't. We spent the night in a double tree hotel.
  This morning, Mom woke us up at 7am. Those of us who drink coffee had some and the rest got ready to go. Our goal today was Chicago, we succeeded. We stopped in Sandusky, Ohio to breakfast at Bob Evans, because Bob Evans down on the farm. It is a very weird town. We counted 3 indoor waterparks. After our breakfast, we continued on our way to Chicago. We stopped briefly in Indiana to take a pee break at a rest stop. It was empty except for the toilets, we then left Indiana quickly. I then took a nice nap. When I woke up we were in Chicago. To kill time before dinner we thought we would check out Field's Museum. Failed. The Spring Awakening music festival had clogged the streets and parking. Hannah was most put off by the many youth wearing odd clothing. We then tried to go to the Art Institute. Failed. We then decided to go to Oak Park, where we toured Frank Lloyd Wright House and Studio. On the way there we came across a stranger wearing an Iniesta jersey, so Susi yelled visca el Barca, meaning long live barca. He smiled and we continued on our way. After that we decided to head to our hotel for the night where we are waiting for our chinese food to arrive. We plan on playing a game of Bezzerwizzer later.
  The weather here sucks. It is currently raining and thundering. It is also very hot out. Our dinner is still not here.

To be continued...
 

Itinerary

Guelph Graduation

Congratulations, Jo!

Our house is being painted

                                 We moved in 11 years ago!   Time is too fast.