we did some shopping before leaving walmart. we haven’t done a lot of cooking yet. we’re eating sandwich’s, soup, and salads. jerry is going to cook salmon tonight.
it seemed like it was long because there was not a lot to look at. i don’t want to say it was boring but it kinda was. i tried to catch a few pictures, but its hard when the coach is on a freeway.
are we there yet
another castle
very interesting formationthe devils gatenow this was prettywe stopped to stretch our legs. the brush was so colorful hey were there, lets stop – no, those things start fires
jerry saw a man laughing as he passed us, so he pulled over to look. the sewer hose had come out and was dragging on the ground. jerry said it was probably bouncing all over the place by the looks of it. i cant believe someone hadn’t gestured to us to look. and it’s ironic because he had just been looking at them in walmart and wondering if he should buy a new one. well, now he has to.
hey look, we finaly did make it.no, now we made it
jerry and i had driven through spearfish on one of first trips to mt. rushmore. we fell in love with it. we happened to go to a garage sale and started talking to the people. it turned out they were from long beach. small world huh. they told us how much they loved it there, except for the snow. we’ve always wanted to visit here again, and can’t wait to get started. but first i have to wake up jerry.
after having bananas on corn flakes for breakfast, emptying the holding tanks, filling the water tanks, we took showers. that always feels good in a good campground shower. we’ve seen some doozies that you couldn’t wait to get out of. if you can believe it, the coach will be 30years old next february. so, we do know how to keep clean in between ray. (remember what you said about putting on marthas socks?) we could go a week without a shower when we went to quartzite. and youre right, that pink does look like my hair.👩🎤 just shoot into the sun sharon.
anyway, we went into the historical downtown before leaving rock springs. i love these old towns that are disappearing across america. it’s sad, like so many, most stores are closed and in disrepair. a few were open here and one was being restored
this was a coal miming town
we had a soda fountain in a drug store near us in wilmington,where i had my first cherry coke
we shopped at montgomery for years. i still have lace curtains i bought there
the camera store still remains. how do like these pictures anonymous?
the heart got my attention to read this. i know more tragic things are happening now, but in 1961 this was a tragedy to this town.
it was a lot of fun looking around. we found a small church thriftstore and talked to the elder ladies for awhile. it seems the bank building is the only restoration project planned for the town. its very sad.🙁but, i got a t-shirt, a blouse, a new Puzzle, and a red vase for $3.🙂 it will be fun to talk about your visit here rosemary.
we left and drove to rawlins, had salads for lunch by a park. then drove all the way to casper, stopping only for gas. staying in a walmart parking lot for the first time this trip. had chicago hot dogs for dinner.
next are the pictures of boring, but interesting, highway 80. we go into south dakota tomorrow. we’re getting close tracy.
we drove through provo canyon to bridal veil falls(this one is in utah tracy) yesterday, and made it to a rock springs,wyoming koa campground, so we can take showers.
this canyon is not as colorful as cedar breaks, but it is beautiful in a different way.
didn’t mean to put an extra one in – and then couldn’t delete it
it was a beautiful day to drive.
i was shooting into the sun, i liked the effect, but moved anyway
this is much better
if you look hard you will almost see a ♥️
Oooohhhhh-aaahhhhh
looks like a castleMy rocks
we love just looking at the clouds
this post isn’t very tidy. i had trouble staying connected this morning and couldn’t make things work very well.
its working better now but i’m not going back to fix it now, even if i could figure out how to do it.
so stay tuned and see if i can get better at this new way to insert pictures
and The principal qualities considered in studying areas for park purposes are their inspirational, educational, and recreational values. National monuments, on the other hand, are areas reserved by the National Government because they contain objects of historic, prehistoric, or scientific interest.Oct 31, 2002. and now you know.
i circled the area we traveled. we’ve been to zion, bryce, and the grand staircase in past travels. cedar breaks national monument was established as a monument by theodore roosevelt in 1933. he wanted it preserved for all mankind. it’s small but beautiful and is not traveled as much as others. if you like to hike it would be the place to go. the red rock formations are breathtaking. we stopped at all four overlooks, all similar but yet different. the most striking is the sunset overlook. you can find pictures online that are much better than mine.
it was a cold and windy day
the roads are as interesting as the overlooks. they are laced with bristlecone pines, aspens, and rock formations.
our schweethearts do like traveling with us. smokey looks out for fires.
we were on a winding road out of cedar breaks and at one point jerry had to stop to let the breaks cool. so i got some rocks. the highway to our next stop, provo, was very long and uneventful. all flatland. but every town we passed had the familiar white steeples on their mormon churchs. a lot of them are all white like this one. i read they don’t use the cross at all on the church or literature, and have no windows. a synic would say that’s to hide whats going on inside???
we are going to provo canyon and bridal veil falls today. i’m not sure how far we will make it after that.
we are missing our midas
and our frequent visitors on the porch and “the girls” of course
and of course every one back home. thank you all for being such good friends, good neighbors and good relatives. thank you for the delicious tuna salad linda, thanks kara for emergency money, and thank you all for your comments. i love them all.
i had two espresso martini’s tracy. the cracker barrel food is like a home cooked meal sharon and you get lots of it. jerry and i always share. try jillyandjerry.wordpress.com. i don’t think it’s the pictures martha, its just the format to enter them in the post. and thank you anonymous in reno, hope you like these pictures.
a reminder-i don’t capitalize on the blog. it takes too much time-and i don’t pay a lot of attention to grammar either.
we left long beach around 11 am thursday, stopping at mcdonalds for our usual cheap hamburgers we can eat as we drive. we made it to las vegas by 4:30, only stopping in baker because jerry wanted an ice cream. yes an ice cream. not gas this time. we actually made it on one tank of gas to las vegas. just barely. a first for jerry.
we watched this hotel being built from the wynn. remember they were putting the t up when you and daryl were here tracy. by the way, happy birthday daryl.
we ate dinner at cracker barrel and went to circus circus rv park for the night. we needed electricity to run the ac it was so hot. it was $30 that night. they wanted $63 for friday night. no thank you.
this is a new hotel that wasn’t here last time we were here with frank and linda a few years ago
i know a lot of you don’t like las vegas and wish to spend no time here. we have learned to enjoy our time here. the shows are spectacular, the good hotels make you feel special, and the sights are mind boggling, the fountains for instance. for awhile Jerry’s pbi job made las vegas a neccisity. we did trade shows here every year. and with all expenses are paid you can really enjoy yourselves. we learned the in’s and out’s and shortcuts to a lot of things.
we got our eggs in a basket at cracker barrel for breakfast this morning. the guy we always get our star tattoos doesn’t work here anymore. so we went to the goodwill outlet, a few more favorite thrift stores and since it wasn’t hot went to park behind the paris, an old standby for years, they do charge $15 dollar overnight parking now. much better than $63. we were going to ‘mon ami gabi’ in the paris anyway. i was disappointed they no longer serve skate, but the steak and frites were delicious. we had fun in the bar talking to a nice guy from boca raton, fl.
thats not us, but its where we sat last night
remember these guys hannah,tracy, javie
View from the parking lot
we got up this morning, got ice, and left for st. george to have lunch at, yes, the cracker barrel. we had the pork chops. delicious. then got on the road to cedar city to spend the night. tomorrow we will go to cedar breaks national monument, it’s near zion and bryce and a continuation of the grand staircase.
look what we saw on the road. its even the same color as ours.
almost a heart💗 i dont know why this picture is so big
i’m having trouble with the new format of wordpress, it’s all greek to me now. so bear with me and
who knew the world was going to go into a tailspin, and drag us all with it, for over 18 months and counting. we were able to get our booster shots yesterday so we feel better about being on the road now.
we are going to finally get to see where tracy and daryl have been hanging out for 5 years. grand forks, north dakota. they like that small town life. no traffic, no crowds, a simpler way of fife.
they bought 2 1/2 acres of land on a corner lot, had plans for a house drawn up to their specs and hired a contractor. which daryl is, by the way, so he did a lot of the work himself. he built the garage too. he’s also restoring his grandfathers pick-up truck. he is the only person i know that has a riding lawn mower, snow plow, and a tractor. and no telling what else in his garage.
tracy is still working. she got the position of the deans office manager of nursing at the university of north dakota after moving there. recently a position of ‘director of alumni and external relations’ – in the bigger college of arts and sciences opened up, she applied, and got the job. “yay tracy”. so she will transfer there this week. same kind of work, but more duties with different surroundings and people. a change of scenery so to speak. her birthday is the 28th so we will be there to celebrate with her for that, and her new job. “yay”.
this trip we will also see our last 2 state capitols. bismark, nd – and piere, sd. that probably doesn’t mean a lot to most folks, but seeing all 50 states and their capitols, was a bucket list adventure. of course we will see lots of stuff on the 6,000 miles we travel, with lots of pictures.
it seems like the news of the coronavirus came to us very slowly at first. it didn’t hit me until we were at ikea and saw people wearing face masks that i felt uneasy. jerry and i are taking retirement pretty seriously now, so we decided to just stay in for a month and let it pass. hmmmm. we saw everyone and told them of our crazy plan.
our calendar has gotten a lot less busy since february-
my last venture out was to the ‘grocery outlet’ march 13th. people were starting to hoard by then. we got what we needed without much trouble.
saturday was my first venture out in 29 days. and the virus hasn’t passed yet. hmmmmm. how naive i was. the world is a different place now. and i wanted to see for myself. so we took a short drive along the coast from san pedro to palos verdes saturday.
not many cars but people were driving so fast
gaffey street, part of my childhood
i should have rolled down the window
our first and only stop was at a beach we went to all the time with the kids. we couldn’t go into any of the beaches or parks. even pullouts on the road were barricaded.
palm trees – hence royal palms
not many sailboats out
or people
looking at the sailboats and the cargo ship in the distance
i see a heart
if you look closely you can see the small plane (dot) that was practicing stunt maneuvers. i caught the sun behind the cloud too
its hard taking pictures from a moving vehicle. here are a few that turned out ok
wayfarers chapel.
they probably don’t mind the shelter in place order
these people either
the hills were alive with with wild mustard. here’s a sample
it was great to get out on such a nice day. we did have a order to pick-up at ralphs on the way home. as we waited for our order to come out, 15 minutes, the long line of people barely moved going in the store.
to top off the trip, we got toilet paper in our order.
stay tuned
love, jilly
oh yeah, we got burritos and tamales from diana’s to go
hello everyone. here we all are, still at home. most of us with no big tables of food and no large groups of people sitting in the chairs. no ham. no scalloped potatoes. no fresh green beans. no cheesecake. we have to observe church services over the internet and tv. i guess Easter egg hunts will still take place within families with small children. i’m not very knowledgeable about Passover, but i guess the same problems and dilemmas face us all.
my cherry tree has traded pretty pink flowers for budding leaves now. i knew they weren’t going to last long, but luckily new pretty flowers are blooming all over the yard. as i said, we have switched sides of the front yard. it’s still a work in progress.
the butterfly garden over here and — the new beach campsite over here.
can you see the heart
this orchard has been blooming for over 25 years
this dutch iris was in a load of dirt we got from your back yard elizabeth before it was your house. how long have you lived here?
remember distant drums? who could forget
how long ago did you buy me this ‘french lace’ tracy?
and tony what about this ‘amore’?
i haven’t grown sweet peas in a long time
smells so good
and of course my all time favorite ‘brandy’
i don’t want to make light of this, but as we get farther into the virus and it takes more and more away from us, lets still be thankful for all the things we still have. this will be a memory by next year. an unpleasant one, but it has taught us something we probably needed to learn. so let’s be more prepared by then.
we went for a drive yesterday and enjoyed a beautiful day on the coast.
i love my cherry tree so much, i wanted to share this story with you. i had so much fun with it and i owe it all to frank, our good friend, neighbor and college professor. he’s still teaching, online for now, but will retire in a few months.
recently, i had come across this essay written by Hugh Gallagher in 1990. an accomplished writer now, had written this application essay for getting into college. as a lark i think. it got published. but that is another story in of itself. check him out.
here is the essay he wrote that i thought was hysterical. i mentioned it to frank and linda and they had not heard of it. but frank thought it was funny too and thought he might use it in his class somehow.
if you can’t read this here, check it out online:
one night we came home and the paper below was on the door. there was a note on it saying since i was not in class that day, haha, i could do it at home. i emailed frank back saying “it will take me more than 30 minutes”. haha.
he had used it as an assignment that day in class, and probably gave me the paper as a lark.
i took the challenge. even though quitting high school early, i don’t think i had ever done a diagnostic essay before. maybe not even a regular essay. a book report maybe? like i said i had a lot of fun with it and this is what i came up with. i got an A. an A+ after i added that last line.
well, i am now growing a cherry blossom tree
i owe it all to frank, thanks. you inspired me exponentially. (did i use that right).
but also the germs. so let’s all do what they are telling us is safe, and don’t take chances. let’s all survive this virus, which everyone in the world knows what it looks like by now.
i hope you’ve all been saving those cvs receipts. i’m holding one visits worth.
we planted a blossoming ‘pink cloud’ cherry tree – before the virus hit. i’ve always admired them. especially in large groupings. i don’t know why i never got one. but recently i was reminded (long story, later) of my desire to have one in the yard. so for presidents day we planted one where the butterfly garden will be now. we’re putting the beach on the other side.
taken from the dining room. i see this from my chair
midas shares his food with all the critters. if you look hard you can see a heart on the left branch
and this is how it gradually grew into…….
THIS……
in case you didn’t see the heart
i’m enjoying this tree so much, and i owe it all to frank. stay tuned for the long story.
Once in awhile-now and again-this is us 