MayseStomp

Today’s trip was short on distance and long on interesting stops. Since we left Boise I have had to continue to alter our travel path due to numerous wild fires throughout Utah. I have long wanted to travel the “Million Dollar Highway” that runs from Ouray to Durango in western Colorado. We almost had to give up on this as well as there are several yet uncontrolled fires in Colorado that had this highway closed until recently. Fortunately, it’s open now and we took the opportunity to head up high into the mountains. For the first couple of hours we drove through very smoky valleys and saw some of the fires in the mountains to our east, but they never got close to the highway.

For decades this road was labelled the “most dangerous road in the US”. Constructed in the 1920s, it is famous for its steep cliffs, hairpin turns, no guardrails, and roughly seventy named avalanche paths crossing the road between Ouray and Silverton. I had a great time white knuckling the south bound lane that runs the outer portion of the cliff side, allowing the girls to look out their windows to instant death below. They repeated advised me to watch the road and not crash.

Our first stop was in Ouray. Just outside of town is a nice hike up to Box Canyon falls with a 285’ waterfall. You can just make out Brenda and Josie near the cave opening.

Brenda determined to find out what’s in that cave.

Continuing south up in the mountains and down one unlabeled trail is a ghost town – the remains of “Ironton”. This town sprang up in 1883 after prospectors struck rich silver deposits nearby, growing almost overnight into a town of roughly 1,000 people with saloons, hotels, schools, brothels and a rail connection south to Silverton. The 1893 silver crash, combined with corrosive sulfide ore that ate through mining equipment, gutted the local economy. After this the population dwindled steadily into the 20th century. The post office closed in 1920 and the last resident died in the mid-1960s, leaving the handful of weathered buildings that still stand today along the Million Dollar Highway. We crawled through the safer looking of the remaining structures and wandered the rest of the town’s footprints looking for treasures.

Ironton lied next to the aptly named Red Mountain Creek. Its color comes from a mix of two things – there is natural leaching of iron out of the ground and staining the creek red-orange even where no mine ever existed. The other half is acid mine drainage — snowmelt and rain filtering through the leftover waste rock and ground-up ore material dumped near a mine after the silver had been extracted over a century of mining.

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Along the trail we ran into a couple of other dogs not on leashes. Winston had to suffer the indignity of a rather intimate greeeting.

Old buildings through the aspens. Before we left I headed out alone to heed the call of nature.

And ran into this guy who was curious enough to see what I was doing (one hand taking care of business, the other frantically trying to work a camera).

We are near the top of the pass, this mining set up is at over 11,000’.

This is the Yankee Girl mining headframe – the building built right over a vertical shaft that holds the pulleys and hoists and allows the miners to go down and bring up silver-infused iron ore. This shaft goes almost straight down 1,200 feet through twelve underground levels. Over sixteen years of operation the mine produced nearly $12 million in silver, worth over $100 million today, making it one of the most valuable mines in the country before 1900.

We continued south into Silverton – and got a late lunch.

Tourism is the only purpose of this town now. We walked up and down the main street and poked into the shops.

This high up the temperature dropped 20+ degrees from what we were used to. We wish we had brought light jackets.

After this we finished up our day in Durango. After checking into our hotel Brenda and I went into the central district to look for some budget art galleries, but the trip was largely a bust. We finished up hitting a Walgreens and grocery store for supplies and returned to the hotel for a dinner in and Netflix.

No problems with travel today – we needed to head south up and over several mountain ranges of southern WY, eastern UT and down the spine of western Colorado.

First was a pit stop to stretch our legs and empty the tanks. Short trail walking along the Green river at Flaming Gorge Dam.

Better view at the Red Canyon Overlook in UT of the Flaming Gorge and the Green River.

There’s a boat down in the river for scale. We stopped for a half mile hike along the cliff line.

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On to the Quarry Visitor Center in Dinosaur National Monument. In 1907 they discovered more than 1500 dinosaur bones accumulated on this hillside. They built a center around the find.

You can see and touch the dinosaur bones that are still embedded in the rock. These bones had accumulated here over tens of millions of years when this area was a swampy river delta. They stacked up and created a bit of a natural dam that was eventually covered in sediment and petrified over the eons.

After that, we headed deeper into the park in less traveled areas to go Petroglyph hunting.

Ancient precursors to the Ute and Uintah Indians made these marks – some are estimated to be 10,000 years old. The one we hiked up to were estimated to be 700-1700 years old.

Hot and windy!

Lizards on the rocks

Josie gave up and headed back to the car. You can see her approaching the vehicle.

Winston parked himself in the shade whenever possible.

The trails went on and on and Brenda was ready to keep going, but we had a schedule to keep and so we turned back and headed south. We finished up in Grand Junction tonight and will continue south tomorrow.

Today we begin the long journey back to Atlanta. We spent 4 weeks in Boise and got in well more than our fair share of fun and visits.

Not quite daylight at Sharon’s house. The car is clean and packed perfect Tetris style. That won’t last a day.

In fact, it all fell apart a bit faster than I had imagined. About an hour down I84 I got an alarm that our rear passenger tire was failing. I had just enough time to get to an exit at Glenn’s Ferry and get it off the road before it failed.

It’s been a long time since I did any road side tire service. Luckily, the lug nut gods were with me today and I was able to muscle them off without special tools. I put on the “doughnut” and we limped back into the Interstate (it’s the only road out in eastern Idaho) to the next town. They were eager to help but don’t have any tires in our goofy Mercedes 19” wheel size. They called down 35 miles to the next stop (Wendell, ID) to folks they know – who also didn’t have any 19” tires our size. In the end, we had to take our chances and continued on to Twin Falls – a town big enough for a Les Schwab.

Les Schwab did have our tire size in stock. Our tire had shattered from the inside out – the steel belts came apart and were beginning to poke through to the outside of the tire. No repair was possible, and with 4-wheel drive Mercedes vehicles, you can’t just put on one new tire. So, our chariot now has a complete set of new shoes.

Waiting for the service was the easy part – just down the road was a restaurant with outdoor dog seating on a balcony that overlooks the gorgeous Twin Falls gorge. By the time our lunch was done and we walked back, our car was ready to continue on.

Winston leaving a little present at the edge of the gorge. The girls are more involved than one might suspect. Winston gets diarrhea sometimes on these trips – stress of the travel and disruption of a structured regime. Making sure he’s “clean” is a high priority for the person who has to spend the rest of the afternoon in the back seat with him.

The rest of the day was uneventful.. we finished up in Western Wyoming.
Dawn in Rock Springs, WY. It’s just me, Winston and the rabbits out at first light.

Continuing my travels in the area..

On the shores of Walloon Lake – Hemingway’s family began summering there in 1899, when he was just a few months old, and he returned nearly every year through his early twenties.

The lake and its surrounding forests, streams, and Indigenous communities provided the raw material for his Nick Adams stories, where the fictional Two-Hearted River and Horton Bay drew heavily on the real geography and people of the Walloon Lake region.

It was here that Hemingway learned to fish, hunt, and observe nature. The lake remained a kind of emotional anchor throughout his life; even as he chased wars and adventures across three continents, Walloon Lake represented an irretrievable Eden of boyhood freedom and unspoiled wilderness.

Across the way is “Windemere” – a private cottage and land still owned by the Hemingway family. Clarence Hemingway (Ernest’s father) purchased the property on the southern shore of Walloon Lake and built the original cottage, which he named Windemere. The modest but comfortable structure became the family’s summer retreat for decades. Strict no trespassing for the likes of me.

The Horton Bay General Store, erected in 1876 on the shores of Lake Charlevoix’s Horton Bay inlet, served as the social and commercial heart of the tiny village that Hemingway knew intimately during his summers in northern Michigan.

Hemingway first visited Horton Bay as a boy accompanying his father on trips from Windemere, and the village and its store became so central to his young adult life that he spent considerable time there in the years following World War I, loafing on the store’s porch, socializing with locals. The store and the Horton Bay community appear directly in his early Nick Adams stories, most notably in “Up in Michigan,” where the store’s proprietor Jim Gilmore is a thinly veiled portrait of a real Horton Bay resident.

I arrived there just after they opened and bought an espresso. Today it’s not so much General Store as tourist location to buy all sorts of locally made foods and artwork.

Back to Petoskey to visit their Little Traverse historical society museum.

The building used to be the train terminus.

Inside they have all sorts of Hemingway relics – mostly donated by the family at Windemere.

Stuffed, extinct Passenger Pigeon. This was an unexpected and interesting exhibit. The forests and shorelines around Petoskey and northern Michigan were among the species’ most critical nesting grounds, with the last truly massive nesting recorded near Petoskey in 1878 drawing an estimated 136 million birds to the region.

That 1878 nesting event became tragically historic not for its abundance but for the industrial-scale slaughter it attracted, as professional hunters and trappers descended on the area by train, killing and netting birds by the millions and shipping barrels of dead pigeons to markets in Chicago and beyond. During those last few summers, they have records of more than 50,000 pigeons were being killed EACH DAY.

The last known passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914, transforming what had been the most numerous bird in North America — perhaps in human history — into a symbol of extinction driven entirely by human exploitation.

There is a non-profit scientific organization called “The Great Passenger Pigeon Comeback” that are using new CRISPR technology to bring back the Passenger Pigeon. Researchers hope to raise the first hatchlings in aviaries between 2029 and 2032, with behaviors similar to historic passenger pigeons, with those birds eventually released into the wild to establish stable, self-sustaining populations. If initial tests are successful, it will be in the Petoskey area where they hope to foster large nesting locations to accommodate the new implants. There are no known efforts to bring back Ernest.

I was in northern Michigan this past week – on business visiting my company’s plant in Charlevoix. Over the weekend I had some free time before I needed to catch my flight back to Boise.
I broke the cardinal rule of photography – I failed to bring my camera with me on this business trip. Shots below are taken with iPhone, like all the other lame Point-and-Pray shutterists.

Ernest Hemingway spent a great deal of time in northern Michigan while growing up. His family came to this area every summer until Hemingway turned 22. This is where he learned to hunt and fish and boat – all enormous aspects of his future lifestyle and writing. I was able to drive around the area and do all things “Hemingway”.

The morning started with a walking tour around the Bay View community in Petoskey. Bay View was founded in 1875 by Michigan Methodists as a camp meeting “for scientific and intellectual culture, and for the promotion of religion and morality”. By the late 1880s, the Bay View Assembly had evolved into a pioneering Chautauqua institution, adding a summer university, a home study program, and a lecture series that drew tens of thousands of visitors — while the community’s early “tent city” gave way to the Victorian cottages that stand today.

The Hemingway family’s annual rail journey from Harbor Springs (the Hemingways lived in Chicago but took a steamer ferry across Lake Michigan. The ferry docked at Harbor Springs about 10 miles north of Petoskey) to Walloon Lake passed directly through Bay View, making it a literal waypoint in young Ernest’s summers.

View across the Little Traverse Bay (part of Lake Michigan) to where the ferries used to dock.

During the winter of 1919–20, when Hemingway was boarding at Eva Potter’s Rooming House in Petoskey and grinding out his earliest stories, Hemingway spent hours writing inside the Bay View Association. More specifically, he retreated to Evelyn Hall (above) , an unoccupied women’s dormitory at Bay View, to escape the distractions of friends who frequently interrupted his work — making Bay View a quiet sanctuary during what is considered a pivotal period in his writing career.

On to breakfast at the Perry Hotel. Built in 1899 by Dr. Norman J. Perry, the Perry Hotel was advertised as Petoskey’s only fireproof hotel and is the sole survivor of the roughly 20 luxury resort hotels operating in the area at the turn of the century.

After the railroad arrived in 1873, Petoskey and the Little Traverse Bay region transformed from a quiet fur-trading settlement into one of the Midwest’s premier summer resort destinations. Thousands of visitors arrived by rail and steamship from cities like Detroit, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis to escape the summer heat and seek hay-fever relief in the cool, clean air off Lake Michigan. By 1900 the boom was such that Petoskey alone had roughly 14 to 21 hotels capable of housing as many as 2,000 guests a night.

The statue in front is of Chief Ignatius Petosegay, the Odawa chief and fur trader for whom the city of Petoskey is named.

Hemingway’s documented ties to the Perry Hotel center on his early-life stays in northern Michigan, where his family summered at Walloon Lake. In 1916, after a hiking and camping trip through northwest lower Michigan with his friend Lewis Clarahan, the teenage Hemingway stayed at the Perry Hotel, reportedly paying 75 cents for his room before heading on to the family cottage. He also frequented the hotel’s bar both before and after his time in Europe as an ambulance driver during WWI.

The five of us (with both dogs) visited Box Canyon and hiked a tricky trail down to the base of the canyon. Total hike down and back was just under 2 hours.

This area fascinates geologists. The water appears to come from “nowhere” to start this river. For a long time, folks assumed the canyon was carved by groundwater sapping… essentially, water seeping out of the basalt gradually undermining the rock above until it collapsed.

Recent research has proven something else.. a megaflood actually carved the canyon approximately 45,000 years ago.

The waters here emerge at a rate of 180,000 gallons per minute — making it one of the largest springs in the United States. The canyon’s waters are maintained at a chilly 50°F year-round. The water flows underground (coming from mountains in the north) for nearly 200 years before emerging as waterfalls out of the canyon walls… slowly filtering through miles of layered basalt before reappearing here

The water purity was quite remarkable.. B+P jumped into these pools and can attest that, even at 50F, it’s still “Freezing!!”

With perfect weather on the schedule, we decided to go camping at a location Brian and Phuong have previously visited (but not camped). It’s about a 2 hour drive from Boise, located nearish to Twin Falls.

The place is free and first-come first-served. On a Monday we just about had the campgrounds to ourselves. B&P have a rooftop tent they set up for their sleeping spot.

Brenda setting up our tent.

Then lots of play time in the afternoon in the shade.

Using Brian’s inflatable kayak, we could paddle upstream to explore the canyon better.

View of the canyon using my old drone.

Overhead view of our camping site.

Come dinner time we do not suffer. Brenda has put a lot of time and thought into the right gear (and ingredients) to make wonderful camping dinners.

Brian also knows how to entertain.. at night he set up a small projector and sound bar so that we could watch a movie by campfire light.

Today was our last full day of hotel-to-hotel travel before we roll into Boise and start taking advantage of Sharon’s kindness, patience and pantry!

Early morning in Cody..Winston needs a bush or tree or pole or something more vertically inclined to take care of his business. This terrain causes him all sorts of frustration.

We decided to risk the long lines and enter into Yellowstone National Park – it actually is a “short cut” considering where we needed to go. We needn’t worry – the lines were not too bad. Things started off pretty enough..

But quickly got nasty. It started to rain and didn’t let up until later in the afternoon. In the end, we passed right through Yellowstone and Grand Tetons and saw very little of either.

We got out at a couple of locations, braving high winds and rainy 40 degree temps to take some snapshots.

We did see some wildlife..

Lunch was in Jackson Hole.. the town was crowded and everyone was wet. Once we headed west and took the Teton Pass through the Targhee forest and into Idaho, it suddenly cleared up, warmed up and we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon.

Fall Creek Falls into the Snake River in the Swan Valley, ID.

Brenda’s pointing out a cave that needs exploring, but it would get her drenched in the effort and so she ended up deciding against it.

We arrived into Idaho Falls late afternoon, got some work done, ordered Ramen for dinner and turned in early. We should arrive into Boise sometime early afternoon on Wednesday.

Continuing west we headed into the Black Hills of SD and to a place I’ve not visited before..

I’m particularly proud of this photo.. it is completely unaltered, uncropped. The light was perfect and the photo really shows the details of the “carving” of the individual faces.

A little more context, taken from the usual tourist location.

It is difficult to get a new take on something photo’d millions of times before.

View from Custer National Park over the Black Hills forest.

We did stop to see how the “new” Crazy Horse monument was coming along.. Not too good. It’s still only about 10% finished, a full 70 years after starting the project. When complete, it will be a marvel – you can barely see some people along the railing near the crane – it will dwarf Mt. Rushmore in scope.. it’s just that none of us will live long enough to see it done. Funding comes 100% from private sources – and those are apparently hard to come by. My thought is that the Chinese government should offer funding and laborers to get the job done in about 2 years. I’m sure our government would object, but it would expose some inconsistencies in priorities.

On to another attraction that doesn’t lack for tourist photos – Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.

Josie has no idea about Close Encounters..

Hiking right at the base. We spent the morning in the park and did the 2 mile hike that goes around the tower. We’re in high elevations now (4000+ ft) and the temperatures have dropped into the 50’s at night.

Entering Bighorn National forest in Wyoming.

Up near the top of the pass, just a tad over 9000 feet.

We found an area at the top where we could go for a hike (huffing and puffing a lot at this altitude) and let Winston run around freely without bothering anyone.

We wanted to play in some snow still around in June.

Coming back down on the west side of the Bighorn Mountains. The Shoshone mountains and the start of Yellowstone National Park off in the distance.

These are the results of my early morning drive. It was daylight by 4:30 and sunrise was at 5:15. I got up around 5, grabbed by camera and Winston and we headed off deeper into the park. We had the roads and views to ourselves.

The girls got up very early as well. I came back to our camp and we decided to pack up and head off to Wall Drug for breakfast. We took the long way through the rest of the park. Brenda is in front of a prairie dog colony watching all of the morning action.

Back to Interstate 90 and civilization…

Most of you know what it’s like driving across the Dakotas.. not a lot to see or do. There are no shortage of billboards that desperately

We stopped in Midland to tour the “1880 Town” and it was worth the time. What started out as a movie set in the early 1970’s has developed into a full town of authentic buildings from the 1880s-1910s.
The weather was perfect, the entire site dog friendly, and lots of opportunities with folks carrying cameras.

The nearby gas station and Quick-E-Mart.. with three goats chilling out front because, why not?

Once I had some reasonable confidence that the weather was going to be decent, I booked us a camping spot for one night inside the Badlands park. We arrived there in the afternoon – it was already 90+ degrees, but there was a strong, constant wind that made being outside pleasant.

It did make setting up the tent take 3 times as long as our camping sessions in the Georgia forests. Between the three of us we were able to hold the tent poles down long enough to get everything staked into position.
The ground here was very loose compared to back at home – the stakes we have weren’t nearly long/big enough and we did have to go through and double or triple stake things down to keep the tent up and resistant to the wind.

Once we set up inside, Winston made it his new home. The three of us played “Uno” and lounged around trying to beat the heat by moving as little as possible.

We drove around the park a bit to see the sights. It was a bit crowded with other visitors and very hot. I have made plans to go back out early in the morning to get the right light. Brenda was scaring me here.. it’s a sheer drop off in all directions and the winds were very hard and unpredictable.

Later that afternoon an unwelcome visitor came to our area. We have some trees near to our tent that hosted some bird nests. This snake got up into one of the nests and was eating one of the babies. Not only the bird parents but other species of birds were all attempting to dive bomb the snake and chase him away to no avail. After his meal, he started working toward our tent, which got Brenda and Josie further agitated.

The snake is just off to the left in the gulch. Brenda chased the snake off by throwing dirt clods at it until he moved off into another direction. For the rest of our trip, Josie was in charge of keeping all of the zippers properly closed up and ensuring there were no entry paths for any type of curious critter.

Campground later that evening. We did get a great showing of starts – but the wind never let up. The phone weather app said we were having 30+ MPH winds and the constant whipping and berating of the tent kept us up for a good part of the night. I had to get out at 1am when the wind had lifted up some of the corner tent peg sections which would have, without immediate service, allow the entire tent to collapse. The wind died down around 2:30am and we then all got some peace to drift off. Politely put, camping makes memories.. but we’re ready for some boring Hilton hotel sessions over the next several nights.

Our slow westward journey continues.

This is usually Winston’s sleeping spot in any hotel – right at the door to prevent anyone from leaving without his knowledge (and accompaniment).

Overhead view of the car with tent and some other camping gear stacked on top. I think we’ll get a chance to use them in a couple more days..

Sunset coming through the windows of an Italian restaurant in Evanston, Illinois. We spent two nights here so I could do some work at my offices in a nearby Chicago suburb.

Cubicle Hell at my Chicago office. These spots are almost all empty now.. the company is 1/2 the size it was 15 years ago and the Chicago office has lost more people than most. Covid was the final blow.. people still come to the office, but only 1 day of the week. This is probably going to change to 0 pretty soon.

At the beach on Lake Michigan, Chicago.

Getting ready to do a hike. We try to find two locations on each travel day to stop and properly stretch our legs, let Winston do his thing and take some photos.

The top of Ferry Bluff, Wisconsin. Ferry Bluff gets its name from Civil War days, when a ferry at the base of the bluff helped farmers and their animals cross the wide Wisconsin River. During the Civil War, a ferryboat landing was located at Honey Creek and it shuttled people and goods across. The path to the top is only open for 6 months of the year – in the Fall and Winter the place is closed to protect Bald Eagle nests – it’s one of only three winter concentrations of bald eagles in the midwest.

Panorama view from Pike’s Peak park in Iowa 500 feet over the Mississippi River. Explorer Zebulon Pike surveyed the area in 1805, identifying it as a potential military post location — before his famous expedition to the Colorado peak that now bears his name.

150 years before Zeb, Father Marquette and Louis Joliet looked out on the bluffs of the western shore a few miles below .. they were the first white men who ever saw Iowa. The park also contains 63 Indian burial grounds, so there may have been some folks here prior to Marquette..

A walk in the woods to find a waterfall down the hill.

We have had gorgeous weather for a solid week, but finally hit Iowa thunderstorms yesterday afternoon. We found a place to stop for the night and ate in from our portable cooler and bags of eaties we have picked up along the way. I have work calls in the morning so we’ll get a late start, but it’s a planned short travel day. We will finish up somewhere in South Dakota this evening, inshallah.

Our travels today took us from north from Iowa into Minnesota. We then took a hard left and headed west into South Dakota.

Our first stop was at Palisades State Park in Garretson, SD. The park features hikes around the Split Rock creek featuring cliffs and rock formations eroded out of pink Sioux Quartzite.
This was our first experience of some real heat this summer – it was pleasant enough in the shade but we all got sweaty doing the loop hikes and were happy to retreat back into the car for some a/c.

We finished our day early in Sioux Falls – taking time to actually visit the waterfalls and park.

After that it was to the hotel early to get some laundry done, order dinner, walk across the street for evening Starbucks coffee and treat and turn in.

Perfect weather and location for a relatively easy hike – about 2 miles along the Appalachian Trail.

Very rocky and mostly uphill, but the hiking app on my phone promised we would be rewarded for our efforts.

Tick check along the way – lots of ticks in the area and Winston seems to attract his fair share. He’s thoroughly drugged and sprayed, but Brenda always wants to just be sure before he passes them on to us.

Hikers resting at the top of Weverton Cliffs, overlooking the Potomac river.

View from the top/edge of the cliffs.

The hike ate up the morning; we returned to our house for a light lunch and hung around watching some TV until the afternoon. We then took Holden (and the cat) back to his apartment. We ate an early dinner in town, said our goodbyes to Holden and returned to West Virginia for the evening. Tomorrow morning, we start our way towards Chicago.

We have begun a long summer road trip that starts along the east coast.

Our first stop was to Maryland to see Holden. We picked him up just after his work on Friday afternoon and then drove a little more than an hour out of town back to Harpers Ferry. This is our third time staying in this small but picturesque town – it offers a great combination of outdoor hikes, tours and food.

We are having perfect weather this weekend – up here in the mountains it is cool at night, warming up only to the mid-70s by the late afternoon.

The house we rented for the weekend – this is the same place we stayed last July

Heading into HF state park.

Jefferson rock and the view back into town with the Potomac river in the distance.

HF has a general store where people doing the Appalachian Trail can stop to get supplies. The place is always full of young, grubby backpackers.

Winston waiting for folks to come out of the one of the stores.

After lunch we drove to nearby Frederick, MD to do some shopping. This was a place Holden didn’t want to miss – where they make all sorts of custom Balsamic Vinegar blends for cooking. He’s become quite interested in cooking and baking and is getting good. We were the beneficiaries of some of his practice work on this trip.

After that we toured Rose Hill Manor – built in the 1790 and home of Maryland’s first governor and member of the Continental Congress, Thomas Johnson.

They had an excellent collection of carriages from the 1800’s – all sorts of styles and sizes.

By late afternoon we came back home and did our ‘wine time’ with leftovers from lunch plus breads, meats and cheeses that Brenda and I bought at the store earlier that morning.
We have one more day to play here before we need to take Holden back to his apartment and we continue our trek westward.

This weekend the three of us (Brenda, Josie and I) went camping in the far northwest corner of Georgia nearby a canyon. We are getting ready to make a long road trip back to Boise this summer and it will likely include some camping dates. We want to get in one more “practice run” with Josie to work out the bugs and identify any other gear (e.g. spatula) that we’re missing.
We hoped that by escaping to the mountains we would be able to get away from the heat – but we were wrong. It was too hot when going to bed and it only dropped down to 67 in the morning.. we all slept splayed out without sleeping bags or blankets.

Brenda trying to decide if she’s going to drop down into a cave. She wisely opted not to.

Josie looking across the canyon to the folks on the easter rim.

Dinner time – steaks and vegetables.

Our setup. The tent was set right behind the car and is connected to the back tailgate via an “umbilical”, but we didn’t really use it.

This morning we did the West Rim Loop Trail – about 4 miles and 2 hours of walking.

Stopping along the way to let Winston get a drink.

The three of us spent our Saturday in Salem, Massachusetts – about 45 minutes from where we’re staying in Boston.

Salem is of course famous for the Witch Trials of 1692, during which more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft and 20 were ultimately executed. It is now a hub for all things witches and warlocks and the occult with a fun and kitschy pedestrian downtown full of shops worth exploring.
During the 1600s and 1700s, Salem was one of the colony’s major ports – but it didn’t have a good deep water harbor – and has ships got larger and the distances ships travelled increased, Salem lost out to the better locations of Boston and New York.

A coven ready to get their shopping on.

Salem has 18 surviving homes from the 1600s and over 400 total historic buildings up to the early 1800s.

Salem harbor looking across to Marblehead peninsula. The house on the left is “The House of the Seven Gables” – built in 1688 and made famous by the book of the same name by Nathanial Hawthorne. We got a tour of the house and surrounding grounds.

Poking around in the attic, right under one of the seven gables.

“The Burying Point” graveyard from 1637; on the right are a series of flat stones jutting out from the wall. This is the Salem Witch Trials Memorial with the name, date and method of execution carved into a rock for each of the 20 known victims.

Colorful neighborhood in Boston – where we stayed. Spring is just starting to begin its processes up this far north.

Josie’s buggy in front of the block where we stayed.

Friday started off slow for us but things picked up come evening time.

I had work to do Friday morning and so we weren’t “off” to start our weekend until just after lunch. That suited Josie as well – she had homework to take care of. We sat together at the kitchen table and did our calls and typing. Brenda is back on the couch reading.

Josie wanted to go to Newbury Street – a main shopping thoroughfare with a mixture of high end and eclectic shops. We had great difficulty getting down there – we didn’t know that this is the weekend for the Boston Marathon. The streets were packed with tourists buying Marathon merchandise.

This place was more Josie’s speed… full of Japanese Manga and anime and other artsy things.

Josie’s showing Brenda some little toy she bought.

Walking to our dinner spot. We made reservations at a place downtown. Josie is now 21 (she turned in February) and so we got to have our first “official” alcoholic drink with her on this trip.

Josie learned about this speakeasy on one of her websites. This is the storefront. The place looks closed and long abandoned. But if you go ahead and try to go through that door..

You get into a tiny, exclusive club that serves all sorts of strange adult drinks.

The night was complete with tickets to see Beauty and the Beast at the Boston Opera house. Folks are filing in.

Our view of the stage and orchestra pit for the show. Both Brenda and Josie got lucky and had no-one sitting directly in front of them, so the two short girls got fantastic views of the performance.

Brenda and I arrived into Boston yesterday evening. We’re going to be here for four nights. I have a business convention to attend (in the 3D printing industry) and then we will spend Friday and Saturday playing.
As an added bonus, we convinced Josie to make the drive up from Rhode Island (about 2 hrs) to spend the weekend with us.

Apartment (AirBnB) in South Boston.

We are across the street from an old (1729) 3-mile marker from the original center location of Boston. (Rock says “Boston 3-Miles 1729”)

Boston Opera House – B and I went there to get tickets for Friday evening’s performance of Beauty and the Beast.

Old State house and site of the Boston Massacre.

Our apartment’s front room.

We had some hours to kill late afternoon until Josie arrived. We wandered around the usual Boston areas downtown.

Rabbit and bird in the graveyard.

Boston Common

Josie arrived safely before it got dark. We ordered Doordash Indian food for dinner, watched some TV and then I turned in early. Brenda and Josie stayed up talking for Lord knows how long.

For our final day in Malaysia we left the city and headed north to the Cameron Highlands.  This area is up in the mountains, much closer to the Thailand border.. the elevation is 5200 feet and so the climate is much cooler and consistent – year ‘round the weather is in the 60’s and 70’s with plenty of sunshine and nearly daily rainfall.

There have been indigenous people (called the Orang Asli) for thousands of years in this area but it was only “discovered” and developed by Scottish geologist and explorer William Cameron in 1885.  This area became popular through the 1930s by the British due to the much more temperate climes and the ability to grow just about anything one might consider.  This area now houses immense farms and tourist destinations for those looking to get out of the city and beat the heat.

A “U-pick” strawberry farm.

An “Agro Market” where locals sell all of the produce grown.  They also had a display of some rarer breeds of housecats, for some strange reason.

And (why not?) more parrots.

Local honey and propolis vendor.  We got to try several different farms’ products – which were quite different enough (some had funky aftertaste, something I’ve never tased in honey) that we could make a favored choice.

Afterwards we had lunch at a golf course and country club.  The “Kelab Golf Sultan Ahmad Shah Cameron Highlands”.  Lunch was “family style”.. Green fees are about US$35 for 18 holes.

Cameron Valley Tea Plantation – this area was developed to produce Black Tea. The plants have been here for 92 years.  All tea is still harvested by hand, using imported cheap Indian labor.

This plantation is over 600 acres in size. 

It rained several times during the day, but we always seemed to just miss getting dumped on when we were out and far away from our bus.  The threat of downpour was always present.

You can wander around and pick the plants.  They have other touristy things to keep the kids busy.  In the end, there is a restaurant that serves all sorts of tea varieties and dishes.. and store which sells boxes and tins to take home.

We stopped at one of the aboriginal villages where our tour guide demonstrated the use of the blow pipes and poisonous darts (Antiaris toxicaria – The active ingredient is contained within a yellowish-white gum, which is tapped from the ipoh tree like rubber.)  The darts paralyze (not kill) animals.. long enough for them to fall out of trees or slow up so that the hunters can catch them.

He is taking aim at the rectangle target off in the distance.

Road side vendors.

Final stop – Lata Iskandar waterfall. 

Heading into the evening, it beginning to get dark and, once we came back down out of the mountains, hot and sticky again.  We didn’t get back to our hotel until 8:30pm.. long enough to shower again, order some dinner and crash for the night.

This is probably the last entry.. today (Thursday) we begin our trip home.. We fly Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong and arrive around dinner time.  Stay at hotel tonight and then tomorrow fly Hong Kong to Seoul, South Korea.  We then catch connection to fly Seoul to Atlanta.  Let’s hope somebody is working the air control towers and immigration booths Friday evening!

With very little of an agenda we agreed to just wander the city and see what we might stumble onto.  We started our walk at Merdeka square which is the largest place for citizen gatherings and marks the location where independence from the UK was achieved in the 50’s.  There are numerous administration buildings and the remains of the Sultan Abdul Samad Jamek Mosque – the oldest in KL and situated at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers.  “Kuala Lumpur” means “muddy confluence” in Malay.

After this we visited the Central Market and the Jalan Petaling Market to pick up some more cheap goodies/gifts.  In general, KL is a very cheap place to visit.. especially compared to our experiences in HK and Singapore.
Here, Brenda is looking through racks and racks of hand-made batik dyed clothing.

In the afternoon we walked through the Perdana Botanical gardens.

Quite by coincidence we saw the signs to yet another bird aviary – this one purports to be the world’s largest free-flight, walk-in aviary – spanning 21 acres under netting.  Here Mom is feeding baby.

Setting sun.  For dinner we went to a nearby Indian restaurant that recently was awarded a Michelin star.  The food and service WAS excellent.. and we were able to have a full meal with wine all in for about US$75.00
Early to bed because we have a long day planned tomorrow on the road to see more of the Malaysian countryside before we return home.

Most of today was dedicated to travel.. we took a flight from Hong Kong and headed a bit west and a lot further south to the island nation of Singapore.  This is our first time here and we’re eager to see what all the fuss is about.
We got it quite late yesterday evening – just time to get checked in our room, get a late night meal and collapse from another day of poor and irregular sleep.  We’ll probably get adjusted to the time difference just as we’re preparing to fly home.

Photos below are from Hong Kong.. yesterday morning, before we needed to leave for the airport, we had some time to wander through some streets of the oldest part of Hong Kong.  Most are in B&W as I was fiddling around with some of the settings just to shake things up.

Brenda on the escalators heading down to the subway station.

Man Mo Temple – the oldest Buddhist temple in Hong Kong (built in the 1850s) on Hollywood street – which was the first street the British set up after staking claim to the island in 1841.

Tai Chi in the park.

This was the first day of the trade show but it didn’t start until just before lunch time.  The weather turned dark and heavily overcast… it never rained but always acted like it was about to.

That gave Brenda and I a chance to walk the streets of Kowloon Bay and find some shops that sold industrial kitchenware (Brenda is always on the hunt for deals on ladles and teabag holders) as well as Asian-centric sunscreen and other skin creams that one can’t purchase in the U.S.  I spent the afternoon at the show walking the aisles until my feet couldn’t take any more walking.  I then retreated to the hotel room for another late afternoon nap.  I have drinks and dinners this evening with clients and so need to try and charge up my battery as best as is possible.

The shots below are just street scene stuff during our morning walkabout.

This building is the convention hall where the trade show is being held.

Our hotel is in the background – the Conrad.

Another full day to explore downtown Baltimore.

We started the morning with a visit to Fort McHenry – famous now for the defense of Baltimore harbor against the British during the War of 1812.  The fort’s success in preventing the British fleet from entering the harbor and reinforcing a ground attack of the city inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry”, which was later put to an existing tune and later became our national anthem.

Here they are raising the 15-star spangled banner for the day.  The original is in the Smithsonian.

The fort was built in 1798 and was used continuously through the end of WWI.

Waterfront view of the area where the fighting took place in 1814.

One of the British canon shot collected after the battle.   Original canons from the era still on display.

Upgraded Civil War era canon installed to prevent any further rebel insurgencies that took place throughout the war in Maryland.

On to lunch..Fells Point neighborhood; for hundreds of years this area was the hub of Maryland’s shipping and shipbuilding industries.

After lunch we walked around the waterfront and enjoyed a cool, sunny afternoon.

Ice cream treats and then back to the house to walk the dog and get ready for wine time/dinner.

For our extended Labor Day weekend we rented a house in a neighborhood in Baltimore, not far from the marina and waterfront attractions.

Brenda and I are taking Josie back to Rhode Island – school starts next week.  On the way, we stopped by Holden’s place in Maryland to pick him up and head to nearby Baltimore for our first visit to this city.  We have gorgeous weather this weekend and so will do as much walking and gawking as possible – with dog Winston in tow.

Our house is just left of the claw-foot tub planter on the sidewalk.  This neighborhood consists of restored row houses, all built right around the first decade of the 1900s.

Early morning walk with Winston.. that lamp lens is made by my company out of our factory in Michigan.

Winston is not a city dog.  There is too much stimulation and things to smell and it ultimately stresses him out.  That doesn’t prevent him from wanting to head right back outside every chance he gets and take it all in.

Waiting for our breakfast bagels to be made.  Brenda has him tied up like a horse to prevent any lunging or sudden movements while others with their dogs pass by.  It seems that everyone in this city owns a dog and they’re all out this weekend walking around.

Patterson Park, right across the street from our house.

Short walk around one area of the marina.

View from a deck mounted on the roof of our house.

It’s an attractive, active and safe neighborhood.. which is more than one can say for a lot of Baltimore.

Some black and white photos from my business trip this week..

The previous day’s storms had blown through and we had nothing but sunny skies today.

We did get in a good up-and-down-the-beach walk this morning before breakfast and then it was back in the car to head north. 
Our goal for the day was to get to Columbia, MD in order to pick up Holden right after he got off work.  It was only a 4 hour drive to his apartment so we had some time to stop and visit George Washington’s Mount Vernon along the way.

Washington’s mansion.. And they’re setting up a stage and seats for some 4th of July celebration this weekend.

With a dog we could access everything save the interior of the mansion.  That suited the girls who were more interested in the gardens and surrounding property.

The had some re-enactors set up throughout the grounds performing various cooking, cleaning and tending tasks.  This guy was recruiting for the militia. 

Today was lazy day at the house.  The girls slept in.  I found a grocery store and place to get the car washed and vacuumed.

After breakfast we headed to one of the many beach access locations here to get in a walk.

Back at home after it started to get too hot to be wandering around in the direct sunlight.  We did visit a local used bookstore and the girls bought several books to get them through the slower periods of the trip. 
Over the lunch period I had several teleconferences to attend and get some light work done.

We then headed back out around dinner time to a different beach to get in another walk.  This one was far more secluded.

Just a bunch of dog photos today.  We took care of laundry, got more food supplies and turned in early.

Today we left South Carolina and continued our drive north.  We could not check into our next location until 5 – so we had some time to kill in the morning as well as make a couple of stops along the way.

The boardwalk on Myrtle Beach.. in the summer it’s open to dogs, but only prior to 10:00am.  We nearly had the place to ourselves this Sunday morning.

Heading east and toward the ocean we entered the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula where the terrain changed dramatically to marshland and estuaries that empty into the Sound.  Along the road we saw a mother black bear and her cub – we had no idea that bears lived in this part of the world.

We’re staying on Hatteras Island, shaped like a sliver and the most windward of the Outer Banks islands.  View of the “street” behind the house we’re renting.  All houses docks, most have boats and all have access via the canals to Pimlico Sound.

View of the house.
This place is far too big for the three of us – but it’s nice to spread out.  Josie gets her own room and finally some privacy from her tiresome parents.

Winston settling in and making it “his”.

Drone shots of the neighborhood.