That'll teach me to gripe

.

Yesterday morning I mentioned that rain was predicted for most of the day... It did, the entire time we were on I-90 and then off and on the rest of the day as we toured through Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks.
But that's not my real complaint. From the time I posted then to now, we've been unable to connect and keep posted about what's been happening on the web. Worse, there wasn't a coffee maker in our room last night.
The good news is that we are finally back in our home time zone.



Oh! It's supposed to rain again tonight and tomorrow morning.

go figure

Did I say again?

.

I meant still.
It is expected that there will be wet weather all day throughout the entire area we are traveling.

maybe there are
new wiper blades
in our future

Gaaaaaaaaah!

.

I hate it when a really good photo turns bad...



...like this one of the Missouri River from the overlook at Chamberlain that I took Saturday. It is about 350 feet above the river and one mile (almost like a roller coaster).

Now we're at Billings, Montana... where we were rained on again.

the sign says
BEWARE OF
POISONOUS SNAKES

The weather

.

I suppose this should be on the other blog. Two things brought it here.
- It's a video
- It's about the weather, which has taken a little turn. Driving back to Rapid City last night was no picnic.

new wiper blades may help

For Bekah 'n Sara

.

We saw Dexter!

The Spam factory, too.

They know Dexter...
Hormel makes Spam

Some may have already see this on Facebook

Uh, oh!

.

I seem to have run out of pictures that are unrelated to what we're currently up to. I'm not particularly motivated to look for bacon related items. And I sure don't want to talk write about how I got lost trying to find my way out of Milwaukee.
Speaking of Milwaukee... here's a picture.

no, I didn't stop and ask for directions

Darn

.

Because it has been overcast... and even threatened rain... for the past few five days we missed seeing the full moon on Tom's birthday.
Now that we're leaving for home, the skies have cleared.
Don't get me wrong. That's a good thing. I don't even want to think about driving cross-country in crappy weather.
By the time you read this we'll be on the road, hopefully taking interesting pictures.

guess I should be happy
too that I didn't have
to contend with the Sun
much when taking photos

Landmark

.

While seeking a place to have lunch yesterday, I came across...



It's not really in Detroit

The third zoo in the las three weeks

Class Reunion

.

You won't find it here!
Those pictures will be found at Rants & Musings.
I'm still searching for a suitable name for that blog.

o 0 o

Last evening there were 22... give or take... to celebrate my brother in law's birthday. Afterward the guitars came out and it was a music fest until droplets of moisture chased everyone indoors. It never did rain... only a U.P. mist. Missed the Upper Peninsula and hit us.

o 0 o

Tomorrow we go back on the road again... west, this time. We are taking a different and more leisurely pace.

o 0 o

I suppose I could gripe about the weather here... but it has really been without precipitation and cool. At home the forecast is for 107 degrees today.

o 0 o

I wonder if my H.S. class will have a reunion. The only one I'm of is the ten year, which I missed.
I don't suppose I ever mentioned that our graduating class was so big that we had to have commencement outdoors and even then there wasn't a venue large enough for everyone who wanted to attend.

o 0 o

This time zone thing has one dubious advantage.

fifty, wow!!!

Today in Minneapolis Detroit

.
In the interest of the environment the title has been recycled and edited.

My brother in law has been known to sing song or two... or more... Oh! Just try to stop him.



Anyway, this is finally the day when he can sing this and really mean it.

Happy Birthday, Tom!

the other b-i-l sings too,

but it's not his birthday

I pulled over to tale a picture (three weeks ago)

.

I wasn't very happy with the first picture I had taken of Morro Rock. When we were a little closer I turned off the highway by a beach access gate to get a better shot and found these signs.



This one in particular amused me.



It is probably a likely candidate for that "passive/aggressive" blog?

it's better than
the brass plaque

Maybe I won't

.

...post any reunion pictures ...yet!

Instead, here's a neighborhood curiosity or, better yet, an oddity.



A closer look



There are others in the neighborhood who are a little more timely with patriotic July 4th decorations.

the temptation
arose to remind that
"Thanksgiving comes first!"

.
Be sure to check out APOD today

.

Finally

.

Yesterday afternoon was the first event of the Berkley (Michigan) High School Class of 1960 Reunion. It was an informal gathering at the home of one of the classmates. But that's not what this post is about.
One of you may be aware that I have been attempting for more than a year to shoot a photo of sunflowers to post. Yesterday in the garden at the gathering it finally happened



I decided to look a little closer



Somebody was working very hard


I decided not to risk getting any closer.

Tonight is the Dinner/Dance. I wonder where we'll finally end up?
That's another story I'll probably forget before it's posted.

maybe some event
photos tomorrow

On the boulevard

.

This is, among other things, Cruise Week on Woodward Avenue. It seems like maybe everyone in Michigan... or at least in Detroit is either cruising or watching.



These folks are the early arrivals at a spot in Huntington Woods south of W. Eleven Mile Road. The population tripled before the evening was done and the cars were bumper to bumper in places.



This just one small sample of what passes by.



Grandma Skip was enjoying herself.


A little video of the action...


...and some more...


...a last one



So I said to myself, "Golly, I think I'll take a picture of the sunset."
Somebody else was saying to themselves, "Gee, are those tornado warnings?"
Neither Grandma Skip nor I heard the siren off in the distance. Then again we aren't in the habit of doing so. Besides, there were lots od distractions rolling by only a few feet away. As it turned out there was a little dust up northeast of where we were last evening [and here, where we're staying]. It knocked the power out for 90,000 homes nearby.
It could be that it also affected Internet sevice, too, because somewhere between the gateway and the World.

Tonight's the first
gathering of the BHS
Class of '60 Reunion

There must be something to post about

.

Yesterday was a vegetation day. Today some laundry is getting done. Then later we may head over to Woodward Avenue to observe some of the activities along "the Cruise."

The rest of this week... and next... seems to be fairly well agendized.

I had to borrow another computer since the laptop isn't able to find the network, even when it's in the same room.

if you're looking for pictures

they're over here

and they're more

than two weeks old.

How we got here

.

Ol' Betsy doesn't seem any the worse for wear.

We've finally arrived at our destination, one week and 2651 miles later*.

A day or two of standing should cure the monky butt.

near Detroit, okay?

*since leaving home, not since starting eastward

East of Chicago

.
Yesterday we finished up with Nebraska. Then crossed all of Iowa and Northern Illinois into (barely) Indiana. Soon we'll jog north into Michigan and cross all (or most, anyway) of the southern part of it as well.

o 0 o

It appears that it's all beans and corn carpeting the countryside from (almost) Wyoming to where we are now (just east of Chicago). There were a few sunflowers seen here and there.
We are also still paralleling the Transcontinental Railroad, too.

o 0 o

I woke up and looked at the alarm clock, saw that it was 7:30am and thought, "Wow, did I ever sleep in." then I remembered that it was still 5:30am at home.

o 0 o

About driving across the country - once we were past Reno and traffic lightned, drivers seemed to become a lot more accomodating... until late yesterday afternoon when we approached the Second City. It was just like being back on I-5 again... organized chaos.

o 0 o

There's a lot more green than we have at home, where this time of year it's mostly black and tan.
Oh! And the roadsides appear to be much more pristine.

o 0 o

Time to hit the road again... maybe there will be pictures.e Yesterday I almost took one of the World's Largest Truck Stop.

Note:

Sunday's second post was just a tad bit exagerated. There is a lot more green in both Wyoming and Nebraska.

Lots of pics on Sunday

.

Anyone who's crossed the state of Wyoming has to have been aware of the Union Pacific Railroad and the long, long trains hauling freight across the country. This is the tail end of a westbound freight with a helper engine.



If I hadn't read this sign below... well look at the following two shots.








And the highway goes on and on and on...



until it reaches Nebraska...



...where there's some color and...



...an outdoor mecca.



Well, it does say "World Headquarters."

tomorrow, Iowa and points East

Yesterday

.
We were in Nevada (and Utah, and Wyoming).
One nice thing about driving in the "high desrt" is that there aren't as many bugs to hit the windshield.



This hill, in Winnemucca, doesn't look nearly as interesting in the photo as is does in person.



And Nevada (and Utah) don't provide roadside photo opportunities along the freeways like California does. That's more than made up for by the speed limit. The Mustang keeps the pace quite well.

75mph may only be a suggestion

On Thursday

O

This was the first visit to AT&T Park for any of the four of us.



But we really came to see the game, which could not have been much better. It had a little of everything, including a win for the Giants.

We're now in "Flyover Country." So posts may be sparse.

Maybe some pictures, too

.

Grandma Skip is attending her high school reunion in two weeks. We have decided to drive because there is a certain curiosity about places we have only seen from 30,000 feet or had related to us by some other source.
We are leaving from San Francisco, rather than driving home. When the opportunity presents itself, there will be posts...

even when there is
no opportunity there
will be a post or two

Today

.

It is a rather auspicious occasion. My cousin, who was born the same day I was , and I are going to a Giants game at AT&T Park to celebrate his birthday. We are going with our wives. None of us have attended a game there previously.
Maybe I will have a story or two about the game... and maybe I will post about it if I can connect to the Internet.
Tomorrow we head for Detroit... or thereabouts.

remind me to tell
you about the t-shirt

Took these yesterday

.

This is the view from one end of the our floor into the atrium at the hotel.




Then from that spot we can turn around and look out the widow...



into Justin Herman Plaza

...and the Ferry Building

A room with a view

.

I mentioned somewhere that we were in S.F. doing something or other.



You can see that we have something like a view.
I have to admit that I was extremely spoiled as a child. My paternal grandparents lived in an apartment that had one of the best panoramas of the bay, surpassed only by the view from Twin Peaks.

more later...

Not necessarily

.

The stuff I post is not in chronological order.

heck, it's not in
any kind of order

We visited some historic places last week

.
This wasn't one of them.



Click on the photo to read the brass plaque.

Himself

He went to see the animals at the zoo

I was there to see him

.

Sometime this morning there is going to be a "Hugh" sighting. We're meeting him and his parents at the zoo.

have I mentioned I like zoos?

Here's the setup

.

Some of you are aware that Grandma Skip and I made a little journey south last week. It was filled with photo opportunities. In fact I've already posted a relatively local shot over here. I took a whole bunch more pictures, some of which will find their way over there.
What this is about, though, is a shot that I am going to post here with an explanation of how I arrived at taking it. Unfortunately, it won't be posted for a few days because that would screw up the sequence and we can't have that.
I am posting it here because it just doesn't belong on the other blog.

you'll see why

It's only a rumor

.

While writing my 100 Things last week, I was reminded that U.S. 50 not only crosses the continent, it passes through our nation's capital [should that be spelled with a capitol?] before finding its way to the Atlantic in Ocean City, MD.
I have now totally blown my train of thought other than the picture above represents what I think of some of the folks who represent us in Washington.

not sure that the picture is really Hwy 50

...more from the Economist

.

There was another piece in the same issue of the magazine that caught my attention. It's about baseball and cricket... or I suppose I should say cricket and baseball.

...only had a brief
glimpse of cricket

It was a thought

.
I might have mentioned that I canceled the subscription to the local daily? We still get the weekly. It is delivered by mail and the news is usually fairly stale. I have been reading The Economist. I find it refreshing. It seems to have less of a bias than the U.S. media. The only problem is that sometimes it seems to get lost in the mail and doesn't arrive until a week after it should, sometimes accompanied by the current issue.
Anyway, I was reading their take on the prison system in the U.S. [compared to other countries] and found an item that it cost, on average, $50,000 to keep a prisoner in a California prison. I immediately calculated that it would be cheaper to pay cons $25,000 a year to behave themselves. Ironically that is still $8,000 a year more than is spent in Mississippi.

the article was a whole
lot longer but that's
what stuck in my mind

Public Service announcement

.

Watch this!



If you fell that far you'd be frazzled, too!

Oh! It's frazil

Don't forget the monthly breakfast at the Frontier Center!!!