Ozark Home: September's Trip

It's been quite some time since I've posted. It's not like nothing has been going on. It's more like a lot has been going on -- either that or I'm just good at putting things off. It's probably both.

We had a good trip to Oregon, California and Washington. We took the train all the way to Los Angeles via Chicago. We changed trains in Chicago and also in Los Angeles. Then we went up the coast (in view of the ocean much of the way) all the way to Eugene, Oregon. We met lots of nice people on the train. I tried to get some good pictures out the window of the train but that's really hard to do. Things tend to show up fuzzy because of the speed. If I knew the ins and outs of my camera I could probably set it to compensate for that.

This was taken from the train in California. I love that you can see where your food is grown. It's so pretty.

These are some inlets from a bay. It was interesting to see the patterns the water made.


I don't remember exactly where this was taken. We were allowed to get off the train at some of the stations. I love these palms even more than the really tall ones.


A big storm came up as we were crossing Texas. At least I think we were in Texas still. It took us a long time to get all the way across that state.

Here we were driving up the coast in California, just about to enter an area of fog. Fog can be very thick along the ocean some days.


This was when we got out and walked back through some trails through the big redwoods. One had fallen here so we asked someone to take our picture by it.


No, he couldn't quite reach around this one. It wasn't the largest of the trees we saw, but it was in a good location for a picture.


This is basically what it looks like to stand on the ground and look up through the trees. They really dwarf you.


Here is "cute little us" when we first entered the redwood area. A guy who was motorcycling through there took our picture and we took his.


Alan seemed to get joy out of taking my picture pigging out on something that is not part of my diet. I forgot what they called this monster burger but it had ham, bacon, cheese, tomato, lettuce and lingonberry jam (yes, really!) on a really big burger. I ate the whole thing. Those were good crispy fries too. Yum!

There's something to be said for a sunset over the Pacific Ocean.


There's even more to be said for having your sweetie there with you by the ocean at sunset. We had to use the flash to have us show up so the sunset doesn't look very spectacular here.


We drove through an area in Oregon where a volcano had erupted. Talk about desolate		.

I thought this was a pretty good one of Mary and Brian. It was really nice to spend some time with them. They have a very pretty home out in the country.

Oh sorry, Mary. One of the poodles jumped up on her just as the camera clicked. Hence her shocked look. They have a very nice deck.

We almost forgot to take this one. I wanted to get a picture of the two siblings. It would have been nice to get David in this one too. Guess we'll have to try to get the three of them together another time.

I just thought this was cute of Mary and her little horse.


We did get an opportunity to attend the Seattle, Washington Temple before returning home. I got this one picture and then my battery died and I didn't have the other one with me. It was interesting that they had copies of the statues that are outside the Nauvoo Visitors Center. I wanted to get some more of the grounds but at least this one turned out pretty good.

While in Seattle we went to the Space Needle which was built in 1962. There is a revolving restaurant in the round part at the top. We had lunch there. As it revolves you are able to see the city all around you. The lunch was kind of expensive but as part of that cost we were able to go up above the restaurant to the viewing area.


Here we are atop the Seattle Space Needle with the city behind us. I'm trying to figure out what the top of my hair was doing.


As we drove through the Chinese section of the city of Seattle I saw this dragon climbing the pole and had to get a shot of him. There was another one but I missed him.

This was taken from a cute little park across the bay from Seattle. We got some good New England clam chowder at a restaurant here. This picture reminds me of a jigsaw puzzle.