Traveling west again - 2011

View From PA to OR 2011 in a larger map

We started west from Erie on June 27th. It's been a fun 3 weeks so far!
The first night we were planning on staying somewhere near Columbus, OH. We stopped at a rest area at about 3 and Tom realized we were less than an hour from Mike and Dinah's house. He called Dinah to see about meeting for dinner, expecting Mike to be on the road for work as he usually is. Lo and behold, they were both home. We met at TGIFriday's for a meal and the Tuesday night NTN Trivia games. We first met Mike at Damon's in Hoover where we would all gather to play those same games every Tuesday night. It was so much fun.

Then on the Wisconsin, where we got the chance to visit with Stephen, Katie, the grandkids and the Murphys at Lake Beulah.Connor is growing and changing. We both had a chance to hold the littlest guy and play with Grady.

Grady is growing up so quickly. He wanted to us to "read" the sticker book to him a lot - so we spent time making up stories about dinosaurs, cars, trucks, etc.  He is a good big brother, as you can see here.

Grady likes the water and is learning to swim, but the day before we arrived, a fish nibbled his leg. So he was reluctant to get in. But Dad swam him out to the big trampoline float and they had a good time.

We stayed the weekend of the 4th at Ottawa Lake Recreation Area campground. It was a full campground and the day use area by the lake was packed both Saturday and Sunday.

From Wisconsin, we traveled hard to get to Colorado to meet up with Warren and Caroline. We made one sight-seeing detour for a ten minute viewing of the World's Largest Ball of Twine (Cawker City, IA).

In CO, we attended the High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival in Westcliffe, CO. 

Loved the music, especially Red Molly. Here's a picture of them getting set up. The people at the festival are very good about respecting the performances - so I didn't want to be in the aisles during a set.

Tom bought 5 raffle tickets to support the local EMS (Westcliffe is really small and the festival basically keeps things running for the EMS). The grand prize was a $1200 acoustic guitar and case. And HE WON IT!

The saying on the back of the festival t-shirts is "If you are lucky enough to be at High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival, you are lucky enough!"

And we sure were lucky - the new guitar, good company, a new friend or two, great music, and on and on and on....




We have worked our way to Salt Lake City, where Sally did more genealogy research and we both rested and relaxed.

Now on to Boise to get some work done on the motorhome and then to Malheur once again. We are looking forward to getting there and seeing the lake, which is much bigger than on our previous visits.