Dateline:  Wednesday, 9/6/11, Scottsbluff, NE

So, here we are in Nebraska, home of country-fried steak (or is it chicken-fried) specials for breakfast, and biscuits and gravy as part of the free Holiday Inn fare.  Thankfully the Holiday Inn still had its signature cinnamon buns and some scrambled eggs so we could ignore that nasty looking country gravy.  The entertaining part of breakfast was discovery of the pancake machine.  Most hotels these days have the waffle maker that you flip over and produce your own belgian waffle, but this was even better, technologically speaking.  You press a button on the front of the machine which apparently is preloaded with batter (no mess for the guests to make), then wait about 1 minute, and your beautful, perfectly cooked 6-7 inch pancake comes sliding out of the machine on rollers.  Way cool!  We may have to actually have some tomorrow morning.

After our entertaining breakfast, we set off for Alliance, NE, about an hour's drive from Scottsbluff, to see the long-awaited Carhenge.  Carhenge, a collection of old automobiles spray-painted gray and set up to the exact specifications of Stonehenge, caught our eye some years ago when we zoomed through our NE corner, but couldn't quite find the way to the roadside attraction.  It definitely meets our criteria for travel oddities, so it was on the Nebraska "must-do" list.  It was very quaint and imaginative, and included a few other auto sculptures as well.  In the land where old automobiles are just scrapped and piled high, this was as good a use as any for the junk.  New Mexico and the rest of the southwest could use this as an object lesson.  The cars were put in place about 24 years ago, and there is not even an admission charge to wander about the place.  True, altruistic art.  Well, maybe not art exactly, but interesting.

Stop number 2 on the agenda was Chimney Rock, a Nebraska historical site.  Chimney Rock is a lone spire rising above a triangular base that can be seen from miles away.  This entire area of the North Platte Valley is the site of the Oregon and Mormon Trails over which up to half a million pioneers, fur traders, and potential miners passed in the 1800s.  Chimney Rock was a landmark along the trail, marking the completion of the first third of the journey west, and the beginning of the really tough travel.  Looking at the surrounding terrain, you wonder how anyone ever made it across country, and this was the easy part before they hit the Rockies.

Our final destination, as it turned out, was Scottsbluff National Monument.  It is another area of eroded sandstone cliffs with interesting shapes.  But for the color - tan sandstone - the formations could have been dropped by the gods from Utah and Arizona.  The area was said to be named for Hiram Scott, a fur trader who died nearby after being abandoned by his travel companions - don't know if he was already dying, or if his abandonment caused his demise.  We got busy picnicking, taking photos and walking around and didn't quite get back inside the visitor center to get the precise scoop.

The monument area has a paved road through three tunnels up to the summit, the highest point of which is about 4600 feet - not really high, but looks good from the ground.  We drove up there and took the small trails out to the respective lookouts.  We spotted the trail that came from the visitor center.  We had decided not to take the trail because it climbed to the summit, and we could drive, and the first half of the trail was just across open land and looked very boring.  However, from the top, we could see that the trail went through a tunnel in the rock about halfway up.  We decided to walk down to the tunnel and then return upward to the parking lot, which proved to be a nice little walk.  We didn't quite get a good taxing hike, but it felt good to work muscles other than one driving calf.

We tried to finish the day by taking another scenic drive that paralleled more of the Oregon Trail.  We didn't quite understand our pitiful map, so we went way out of the way to get there.  Upon approach to the entrance to our planned route, we saw a truck coming at us in a cloud of dust.  Ooops!  Nowhere did it say the proposed 23 mile route was unpaved. 

After a fast reconsideration of our options, we returned to town in search of a restaurant for tonight.  Although Scottsbluff has a population of around 14,000, restaurants other than fast food places appear to be somewhat scarce.  The best restaurant in town is across from our hotel, but has peanut shells on the floor, so we don't dare go near there if we want to keep Bill healthy.  We finally found a Perkins restaurant which at least looks relatively new and clean, and will have to do for our fine dining tonight.

Satisfied with our tourist quotient today, we returned to the hotel to rest up, catch up on the blog and photos, and rehydrate.  I finished a rather klutsy day by promptly knocking over my entire glass of Diet Coke almost immediately.  It goes with the banged knuckles and fingertips that I kept ramming into things today.  Perhaps still a little punchy from the long driving day yesterday?

Look for our first day Nebraska photos on the Picasa site, above.

Dateline:  Thursday, 9/7/11, Kearney, NE

We had a wonderful day today, combining eastward progress via an easy day of driving with some tourist stops.  Sometimes fate intervenes and changes plans, and the result is even better.  I had mapped out tourist sites in 3 different cities and tried to plan them out last night based on travel time and hours of operation.  We are finding some places have much more restricted hours after Labor Day which causes us to have to plan accordingly.  In addition, we were changing time zones again today which resulted in a net loss of an hour.  Thus, 2 of my planned 3 stops just were not going to work out.

The end result was spending all of our sightseeing time in the city of North Platte, Nebraska.  It was a wonderful, pretty place, population around 24,000, with a variety of old-fashioned small brick homes complemented by some newer areas of higher scale housing.  Most of the streets were narrow, but lined with huge trees creating a leafy canopy over the entire area.  Other than the main street, everything else seemed to have a speed limit of 25 mph which allowed for plenty time of gawking at the locals.

Our first site was the Golden Spike Tower and visitor center located at Union Pacific's Bailey Yard.  According to the brochure, "The Guinness Book of World Records certifies Bailey Yard as the world's largest railroad yard, with a mind-boggling array of more than 315 miles of tracks, accommodating more than 150 trains a day."  North Platte is a classification yard wherein freight trains and cars are reassigned and generally combined for trips west to California and east to Chicago.  The golden spike part was where the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern completed their connections, not to be confused with Promontory Point in Utah marking the completion of the transcontinental railroad.  The tower has observation decks 7 and 8 stories high, allowing a marvelous view of the rail yards and surrounding countryside.  It was fun to watch all the little engines moving back and forth, strings of freight cars being sent remotely over "humps" to their storage tracks, propelled by gravity, not engines.  This is definitely train country as we have seen and heard trains and engine horns for the past several nights.

One of the sidelights of the Bailey Yard was its proximity to a large cornfield (actually, everything here seems to be adjacent to a cornfield), but this one was already cut into a pattern for a maze that will open in about 10 days as part of "Railfest."  From the high observation tower, you could discern the words and the train engine in the pattern of the corn rows.  Cool!

Two of the past presidents of Union Pacific hail from North Platte - William Jeffers and Edd Bailey.  Both were true railroad people, working their way up from the most menial entry level jobs to president of the railroads.  For another interesting tidbit, Jeffers retired to Los Angeles where he bought a house in Toluca Lake from Roy Disney.

After a quick lunch back in the main part of town, we went out to Buffalo Bill State Historic Park, traveling along Buffalo Bill Avenue, of course.  Buffalo Bill Cody had a beautiful Victorian style house in North Platte, inhabited primarily by his wife and children while he was off performing in the Wild West shows around the world.  They moved to Cody, Wyoming to operate a hotel in his later years, but North Platte definitely claims him as one of their own.  The house was quite comfortably furnished, with surprisingly spacious rooms and fancy wallpaper decor.  The grounds of the park, presumably his ranch, were incredibly green and beautiful.  The barn contained a lot of photographs from the old shows and family portraits.

Finishing off the afternoon, we went to the Lincoln County Historical Museum.  There were a lot of period artifacts on display, but one exhibit in particular caught our attention.  North Platte operated a famous World War II canteen at the train station for the military personnel who came through on the troop trains.  Over the course of the war, the local volunteers provided beverages, food, a warm greeting, and a birthday cake as warranted to more than six million service people.  Even though the stop was only 10-15 minutes, many of the service people never forgot the warm hospitality and expressions of gratitude from the local people.  The documentary and other materials were very moving.

On the exterior grounds of the museum were several buildings typical of the county's history, including a church, schoolhouse, gas station, barber shop, etc.  The most interesting point for us was the inclusion of a house ordered through Sears Roebuck around 1899.  The owner could provide the architectural specifics, Sears would provide all the materials cut to order, and the house could be assembled on site.  The cost was an amazing $2,300 for a two story, four bedroom house, payable in installments.  As we had learned previously in a History Channel documentary, Sears provided almost everything imaginable in those days, and home ownership was promoted with exceeding liberal payment plans, often no more than $1 at a time.

At the conclusion of the museum tour, it was time to hit the road for the final leg of the day's journey, ending at Kearney, NE, about another 99 miles down the road.  We returned to the nearby interstate and completed our journey quickly.  After all, we had to be in place in plenty of time for the opening night of football, right?

Look for our second day Nebraska photos on the Picasa site, above.  Bill discovered that the photos were not available until I modified the access rights last night.  Sorry for any inconvenience.

Dateline:  Saturday, 9/10/11, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

We're on our second and last night in environs of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, technically the city of Marion.  Friday was spent along I-80, allegedly the country's most-travelled interstate.  Judging by the number of trucks we spent the day with, that label is probably correct.  Although we moved along at a comfortable speed of 75 mph in Nebraska, we had to slow to 70 mph in Iowa.  Not too many vehicles doing much in excess of the speed limit.  The pavement surface changed in Iowa to something really annoying which caused our tires to make much more road noise, at times a shrill whistle which nearly drove us crazy, and which made listening to our audio book almost impossible when we could only catch about 50% of the words.  So much for the supposedly quiet interior of a Lexus.  I'd hate to have a noisy vehicle!

This interstate was typically boring - especially so in this part of the country.  It goes straight through the middle of Nebraska and Iowa.  As far as we could determine, it was basically one extended cornfield, broken only occasionally by offramps and rest areas (which were really the nicest things we saw during the day).  Cornfields also seem to generate a high quantity of grasshoppers, many of which met their demise against our car.  The interstates aren't as bad as the state highways for grasshopper content, but there are still zillions of them, and other beasties now in our front grille.

Our residence for the two nights was a Best Western of very eclectic design.  It's the Best Western Longbranch - started out as a western restaurant, then added some motel rooms, then some more rooms and a conference/event center, then a health club.  They just kept building up against the hill, so there are various levels and a convoluted path up and down stairways to get to the breakfast area, pool, and fitness center.  The part facing the street still has some western facades, and features the Longbranch restaurant, Kitty's Lounge, and some other cutesy establishments.  Several cowboys loped into the lobby while we registered, looking for some members of a wedding party.  We think the event is tonight, but we carefully avoided it.  This place is definitely unique, but it does have a killer workout area.

Today was our last day of sightseeing on the meander to Minnesota.  Poor Bill really thought we were spending the night nearer Davenport and the Quad Cities on the Mississippi so we could see stuff down there, but that's not how we reserved it.  We thought about going down there for the day, but didn't really relish the thought of more car trips of at least 1 1/2 hours one way just to play tourist.  Instead, we did some driving around here to see more local sights.

We are fans of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture and love to visit his creations.  We had located another one open to the public in Cedar Rock State Park, about 40 minutes drive northeast from here.  We went through some lovely countryside - cornfields of course, but also a few small towns, and admired middle America.  The aluminum siding business must be a great investment around here.  Many of the houses were tiny, or were very tall in proportion to their width, and very picturesque.  The iPad proved invaluable again in directing us through the intertwining country roads to the remote house destination.  IPad is much better than our out-of-date GPS which often doesn't recognize details outside urban areas.  And, you can reprogram it while in transit rather than having to pull over and ensure that the driver has stopped safely before you can change the GPS.  Once we finally figured out how to display the written directions, it got even more useful.

Back to FLWright.  The house we visited was the Lowell Walter residence, a brick structure built in the early 1950s in Wright's Usonian period.  He created very utilitarian residences with a typically large living/dining room bathed in natural light from large windows; a central core "work area" aka kitchen, boiler, electric panel; and a long hall off of which there are bedrooms.  The Walter family was quite wealthy, and allowed substantial cost overruns for Wright, about 500% as I understood it, but the result was amazing.  The property is located almost adjacent to the "Wapsi" River (real name is something much longer and unpronounceable), and is very secluded from the road.  In fact, we had to be transported from the visitor center on a wagon drawn by a tractor about 3/4 mile to the house - past cornfields, of course. 

The house had some charming features, including the use of chunks of colored glass backlit in little niches to give the impression of stained glass without the expense of an actual pane.  The panel by the front entrance was repeated in miniature by the cabinets in which the china was stored.  This house also had high clerestory windows, as well as a number of clear windows in the ceilings which were lighted at night.  The main gathering area was very inviting, and furnished with Wright's intriguing plywood/veneer based custom furniture, with a variety of interlocking tables to accommodate guests only when needed, but stored underneath other furniture when only the family was in residence.  The bedrooms were actually of decent size, contrary to some of Wright's designs.  There was wood paneling throughout, deeply grooved, and polished to a high sheen.  Bookshelves and cabinets lined the already narrow hall, but the lack of width wasn't too extreme.  Even the bathrooms were very unique - using a combination unit of toilet, sink, bathtub, and cabinets.  The sink would swivel over the bathtub to empty, or allow access to the toilet, and the same faucet served both the sink and the tub/shower.  This is the only house in which Wright used this unit - probably the company went out of business as people demanded larger and more luxurious bathrooms.

Down by the river was a boathouse from which a small pleasure craft could be launched.  The boathouse had an upper deck and a small room that could be used as a guest quarter.  The deck was situated with a great view of the placid river, and would be a wonderful place to spend summer afternoons.

There was lots more about the house, too, but on to the next stop...

The afternoon was another house tour - the polar opposite of Wright's spare architectural vision.  We visited Brucemore, a Queen Anne design of three stories and some 21 rooms.  We had been lucky to have a semi-private tour of Wright's house with only one other couple;  here we had an exclusive tour.  The tourist season has seriously waned, and a concert was planned on the grounds of Brucemore for the evening, with signs purporting to only permit walk-in traffic to the grounds.  We circled the area for a good 10 minutes looking for a place to park before deciding to be brave and just drive up the entrance road and ignore the signs.  This set-up had possibly dissuaded people from coming for tours today, so there was only us at the last afternoon tour, which was wonderful.

The various owners of Brucemore were local wealthy business people in Cedar Rapids.  The second family to own the estate was the Douglas family which remodeled the place extensively.  The house, although highly decorated, was made to be a very liveable place and inviting for guests.  Mr. Douglas was quite the jolly fellow, insisting that everyone call him by his first name - friends, employees, whatever station in life.  He also loved to entertain, and to play the occasional practical joke.  The three floors of the house have large, airy rooms, pleasant by any standard, and provided a very comfortable environment for his family of wife and three daughters, as well as a few live-in household staff and nanny.  However, Mr. Douglas was a man ahead of his time.  He created his own "man-cave" long before the concept became widespread.  He deepened the basement, and it became his party lair.  He created the "Tahiti Room", decorated with a South Seas theme and map of the Tahitian Islands on the floor.  Adjacent to the Tahiti Room, and in a radically different decor, was the Grizzly Bar - a room decorated with rough-hewn logs, sporting a bear rug on the floor, a complete wood bar, and a roulette table he purchased from a casino.  This man could throw some serious parties.  Being a wealthy businessman, he also hobnobbed with the political elite.  At one point he had Herbert Hoover coming for dinner and to spend the night before the opening of the Hoover Library.  Hoover was told to invite whomever he wished for dinner, so he invited Harry Truman!

Two other interesting tidbits about the house:  it had a refrigerator installed approximately 3 years ahead of when they were more generally available.  The device looks like an ice box, but has the interior works of a refrigerator.  The unit is about 100 years old, and still functions.  Secondly, the Douglas family had a pipe organ installed in the house during the course of their remodeling.  It has some 500 pipes worked into the walls of the three story building, taking over what used to be their oldest daughter's bedroom.  At Christmas the organ is still played, and is so loud on the top floor that people in the tour groups have to shout to be heard.

Douglas also had an affinity for animals.  At one time he owned 21 German Shepherds, and 3 circus-trained lions.  He enjoyed relaxing by wrestling with the lions.  He also thought it great fun to release the lions to roam when tradesmen or other people were coming to the house unawares.  There was said to be a pet cemetery on the property for his dogs and one of the lions, but we were unable to find it.

The really nice part about Brucemore is that the trust founded by Douglas's daughter when she deeded the house to the state specified that the grounds should be open as a public park, so you can wander about the area freely.  The trust also specified that no weddings could be held on the grounds, so people with dogs can come and romp without fear of interrupting anything.  The pleasant area of the grounds was evident as the Iowa symphony concert was being set up on the vast lawns for tonight, cleverly called "Brucemorchestra."

Thus, we've decided that Iowa is a bit of all right, as long as you can get into the communities and travel along the less major roads.  It can all be very charming and pretty, and certainly a liveable place, at least in the summer. 

The weather on our meander has been very cooperative thus far - warm and mild during the sightseeing days, a little drizzly and cloudy on travel days.  We anticipate another good day for the final run into Minnesota tomorrow, after which it looks like fall will arrive with a bang and I, at least, will be getting out the warmer clothes.

Photos of our houses are being posted.

Dateline:  Sunday, 9/11/11, Deerwood, Minnesota (Brainerd Lakes area)

We have reached our primary destination for our golfing trip in Minnesota.  We had another seemingly endless day of driving, backtracking a little west from Cedar Rapids, then north through the remaining part of Iowa, and up into Minnesota.  Our infinite number of miiles of cornfields continued even along the other interstates.  Even the southern part of Minnesota still teemed with corn, apparently not realizing that it was not really a part of Iowa.

Finally, the scenery gave way to some more rolling hills, fields with actually more than one tree per acre in them, and the occasional set of cows and a few horses.  After an hour or so into Minnesota, the sides of the roads actually became small forests, with nary a corn cob in sight, thank goodness.  We have had our fill of the endless, boring flat fields, broken only by silos and farmhouses.  Although the landscape was picturesque to start with, by the third day or so it seemed like we were trapped in a Groundhog Day movie - the one where the same day's events keep starting over and over.

As we proceeded farther north into the central part of Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes became much more apparent.  Small lakes and ponds cropped up around most turns.  We were particularly impressed with Mille Lacs, the large lake around which we had to navigate to get to our final destination.  It was the type of large scale lake where you couldn't even see the opposite shore, only the horizon line of lake water.  Impressive!  We don't have any stats on the size of the lake, but it surely was larger than the usual concept of lake.

We arrived unscathed but tired at our destination point, Ruttger's Lodge at Bay Lake.  Ruttger's has been in business practically forever, and has a very nice complex.  We were shocked that it is essentially teeming with people.  Our last trip to this general area was a few weeks later in the season and our resort was virtually empty.  This place is still alive and well after Labor Day and has several largish groups staying, presumably for the week.  We will be here for 10 days.

The accommodations arranged by our fearless leaders are absolutely marvelous.  We all have one-story condos that are amazingly spacious, with a real living room and full kitchen.  The interior is all light wood paneled and has features such as a full stone fireplace, a very roomy bathroom with jacuzzi tub and separate large shower, a hall closet for extra storage, and a flat screen TV mounted in the living room.  We also have a little patio off the living room with a table and chairs, facing a decorative pond and the rest of the grounds.  Although it might be more rustic staying in the old lodge, at this point we are very happy to have lots of space to ourselves with room to unpack and spread out our worldly possessions.

Breakfast and dinners are supplied on all days as other eating arrangements are not easily located or geographically close.  The food so far doesn't promise to be gourmet, but it's ample and nourishing.  We may get tired of the nightly buffet and try to find some fresh fish places somewhere as the week progresses.  Lunches will be provided by the various golf courses we frequent, and we're on our own on the non-golf days.

The weather upon arrival was warm and lovely, and I took advantage of the warm breeze to sit outside for a while and decompress from driving.  The weather is due to turn cold in a few days, so we're enjoying the sunshine while we can.  I don't see any wood by the fireplace, so we may have to just resort to forced air heating at night when the temperatures drop to around 30 degrees.  But right now - we're loving this place!

Dateline:  Monday, 9/11/11, Deerwood, Minnesota

Our first day of the scheduled golf itinerary got off to a good, but difficult start.  We had to gulp down breakfast in order to be ready for a departure time that allowed about 50 minutes to get to our first golf course.  We have another comparable drive tomorrow, then we get to play courses closer to the resort.

We thought we would avoid the Hand curse of getting lost on the way to golf courses by accepting a ride from George and Marianne Polivka.  George set his GPS for the destination, but then took an early incorrect left turn and ended up on a deadend road.  I touted Bill's prowess at following a set of printed directions, so the booklet was handed to Bill to navigate.  About 15 miles later after the GPS kept insisting something was amiss, Bill realized he was reading Tuesday's directions, not Monday's.  Oops = U-turn, and hurry to the golf course, just in time to hit a few balls, swallow another Advil and tee off, hoping for the best.  The Hand curse continues, even if we are not driving.

Golden Eagle was the name of today's course, some 50 minutes from here, in the little town of "55 Lakes".  It was a pleasant enough layout - not too forested, so the fairway width (or lack of same) wasn't intimidating.  However, it had killer rough.  This was the kind of grass that, if it didn't swallow your ball whole, never to be seen again, absolutely prohibited any kind of distance shot taken from it.  If ever there was velcro grass, this was it!  There were no kicks off of hills, so it the ball hit the rough on the hill it stayed there, and then you had a less than wonderful sidehill lie to further complicate the matter.  For those of us not blessed with a straight trajectory on every shot, the day was very difficult.  Even the rough around the greens was mean - you couldn't chip out of it unless you carried the ball through the entire green, and if you tried even a 6 inch putt, your ball went about 4 inches.

The other issues on the course were the hazard carries.  The marshal suggested that the men play the "green" tees on 5 of the holes that had hazard carries, thinking that this would make the play more fun.  None of the guys really liked the result.  The carries wouldn't have been extremely difficult, and the advanced tees usually led to short or miscalculated layup shots.  Our team ignored the wimpy tees on one of the holes and the guys were almost happier about it, other than the one whose ball disappeared into the rough once again. 

The overall consensus was that it was a nice course, scenic enough (especially with the young eagle spotted high in its nest), in great shape, and weather was perfect.  We were just all tired from swinging so hard in the rough and tramping through the darned stuff looking for balls.

We got very engrossed in our game today, and forgot to take pictures.  There were not any extraordinarily scenic holes anyway.

Day Two of the golf itinerary led us to McGregor, MN, another 50-ish minute drive, to Minnesota National Golf Course.  We let the GPS do the guiding today and it did not lead the Polivka vehicle astray.  We went through a number of small towns, wound around a few more (dozen?) lakes, and across a few fields before encountering the golf course rather out in the middle of nowhere. Someone has grand designs on the area as the main lobby of the clubhouse is a sales office for lots around the course.  During the day we saw a few nice houses adjacent to the course, but no signs of largescale development or lot preparation.

Today's golf course had much more forgiving rough cut grass, but it made up for that lack of difficulty by adding lots and lots of lakes filled with cattails and other bushy plants.  They just looked like planted areas, but water almost always lurked beneath.  Unless your ball just barely rolled toward the area and stopped in the longish grass, it was gone, baby, gone!  The fairways were generally wide enough between the trees, but you often had to thread around or over the hazards carefully.  I did manage to find my share of trees to bounce off of, and of course contributed heavily to the ball count in the water bushy areas.

We were playing a partner's best ball format, and Bill and I were doing rather well on the front nine.  Unfortunately, we still had a back nine to contend with, and we pretty much fell apart.  It's a bad day when we can't find enough holes to constitute my minimum mandatory 6 scores. The play was slow - 5 1/2 hrs to complete the round - occasional wind gusts added challenge, and I especially couldn't sink any putts, either long or short.  The group had lunch planned after the round which caused us to be practically weak from hunger by the time we ate at 3:30.  We are absolutely going to have to start packing serious snacks to keep up the energy level.

The weather mostly cooperated today.  It was probably in the mid-60s and windy, but no really extreme coldness or rain.  We were happy to have worn a few extra layers of clothing, but haven't had to break out the really warm weather gear yet.  Tomorrow is predicted to be the coolest day, and the nighttime temperature is supposed to drop to around 26.  We're not sure yet what we will be able to do on our non-golf day of rest tomorrow.  We'll just wait and see how the weather looks in the morning before we venture out anywhere.

Dateline:  Wednesday, 9/14/11, Deerwood, Minnesota

The word for the day was COLD!  We used the occasion of our non-golf day to sleep in until past 8:15, looked outside and saw bright blue skies with the occasional wisps of cloud, and thought all was well with the world.  As soon as we stepped outside, the cold temperature and chilling wind convinced us otherwise.  The temperature was in the low 40s, with the "real feel" of something like 37.  That may not be extreme for the Minnesotans and other cold weather fans, but it was not pleasant for us.  We quickly made our way over to the lodge for breakfast and a comparison of plans with some of the other Golfari club members.

We had hoped to get in some exercise today by means of a hike in the Crow Wing State Park, not too far from here.  We decided that would not be a good idea after all, as neither one of us likes to hike all bundled up, and the cold wind actually made it more uncomfortable than just the cold temperature.  So much for walking off some of the many calories we have consumed thus far with no real chance at exercise.

After a hearty breakfast to fuel our probable sedentary activities, I perused the internet for other possible things to do today.  Movies seemed like a good idea.  Nope - nothing scheduled until around 4:30.  We forgot that not all theatres start by 11:30 like they do in Palm Springs, or at least not this time of year when everything is cut back after that magic holiday of Labor Day.  OK, how about the scenic highway previously printed out, starting at St. Croix Falls?  Nope - starting point was about 200 miles away, and that wasn't going to happen today.  Some of the other club members were going up to the headwaters of the Mississippi, but we had been there on a previous trip and weren't inclined to go again. Brainerd Lakes area activities are centered around lakes - fishing, swimming, and other water activities, and golf.  Much as I'd like to go out on a lake, I don't want to need a complete outfit of Polar Tech to do it.

Finally, I found a possible activity of sorts - the Paul Bunyan Scenic Byway, starting only about 30 miles from here, and extending some 50 miles or so.  That seemed doable, and would get us out of the condo for a while, so we set off with small printed map in hand.

If ever there was a scenic byway misnamed, this one was it!  The concept of "scenic" was limited to occasional split second glimpses of various lakes through the ever present shoreline trees and a myriad of golf courses.  True access to most of the lake shores was limited to invading various resorts or ignoring private road signs to get away from the highway.  Even those methods were not very satisfactory.  Perhaps when all the fall colors start to appear in the trees, the drive will seem better, but today it was mostly nondescript road.

The byway was supposed to include a number of informational kiosks along the road.  After the extended search for the first one unearthed it in the corner of a local city hall parking lot,  we found it only contained a "tall tale" from Paul Bunyan, the legendary woodsman and story teller from this here parts.  We decided stops at the kiosks were not going to be useful, and stop looking for them, and, consequently, never saw any obvious ones if they were to be had.

Lunch was the highlight of our day, such as it was.  We stopped at a local cafe we had spotted early in our trip, and which was conveniently located on the loop of our return.  It was called the A-Pine restaurant, housed in an A-frame building surrounded with pines.  It was homey and cozy, and filled with what had to be mostly locals - lots of flannel, denim, some suspenders, and pear-shaped humans.  Large, pear-shaped humans.  The food was not remarkable, but it was ample and hot, when it eventually arrived.  We also took the waitress's recommendation of a hot apple dumpling fresh out of the oven, served with cinnamon ice cream.  The restaurant stocked a number of intriguing sounding pies from a local bakery - "Mary Etta's Pies" - so we grabbed a raspberry pie to take back to the condo. 

Bill, easily entertained today, found a nearby adjacent sign intriguing.  The A-Pine restaurant sign featured chili, and it was located next to a Shell gas station.  The somewhat humorous sign just beyond the two establishments touted "whoops, you yust (sic) passed gas."  Obviously, we were looking for anything out of the ordinary today.  The photo-taking content is waaay down, and we had already passed up the fish shaped mailbox and the smiley face worked into the stonework of an orthodontists' office.  We also missed a beautiful photo of guys standing in a bass boat on our local Bay Lake this morning in the bright sunshine, with lots of good reflections on the water.  Next time, we take the camera to breakfast.  We've posted a few photos from the day at the Picasa site.

Fed and watered, we returned back to the condo with only a slight detour to a market to buy some simple food for tonight and a few other provisions to take sustenance out on the golf course in the coming days.  Late in the afternoon we finally had one of the many threatened intermittent showers, although even that didn't amount to much.

Tomorrow morning promises to be even colder after the extreme freeze warning for tonight, so we're breaking out all the warm layers and taking them along, hoping that we'll only have to deal with cold and not that biting wind.  You never know what kind of weather you'll encounter up here in September.  At least we haven't had to deal with mosquitoes - maybe they retire after Labor Day as well. 

Dateline:  Thursday, 9/15/11, Deerwood, Minnesota

This morning proved me wrong about yesterday's word for the day being COLD.  That really should have been reserved for this morning.  As predicted, the temp dropped even lower last night, resulting in a morning wake-up temperature of 28 degrees.  Now that's cold!  Everyone was breaking out all the layers they brought from California just to walk over to the lodge for breakfast. 

The oddest effect of the cold temperature was the low fog that covered the lake.  Other than the nearby shoreline, nothing could be seen.  By the time we finished breakfast around 7:30, a little bit of the lake's island could almost be seen.  All of the buildings were just in a bit of haze, but anything over the water was totally invisible.  Take a look at some of today's pictures to get a better idea.

On our walk to and from the lodge, we saw that ice was frozen on all the cars, including ours.  The ice crystals formed some really lovely and interesting patterns on the car roofs, almost like someone had airbrushed delicate leaf patterns into the crystals.  We tried to take some photos of that as well, but lacked the necessary height to really do it justice.  Our car had a few interesting patterns also, as well as frozen drops from the tree under which we parked, making the sunroof look like someone had dropped icy Hershey kisses on our rooftop.  We learned the knack of scraping ice with credit cards which works very well.  We were reluctant to pour water of any temperature on the windshield to help clear it as we already have a slight starburst crack, and didn't want to risk a major break.

The 45 minute drive to the golf course proved rather scary this morning.  The fog that had enshrouded the lake had also found many spots on the highways, making visibility an illusive concept at times.  I was certainly wishing I were following someone, rather than having George and Marianne right behind me.  It would have been very embarassing to run off the road or into someone else while someone I know is watching.  Fortunately, that didn't happen, and no one else ran into us (although George tried at the last turn) and we made it to the course without any missed turns.  A record for the Hand car?  Perhaps.

The course for the day was The Classic at Madden's, a very lovely, nicely maintained course.  It still had a lot of the local hazards with watery plants and some very wet rough which caused a few problems here and there.  This course was the most scenic by far, as golf course scenery goes.  We were playing a team 1-2-3 format which caused periodic consternation on the holes where we needed 3 scores, and nobody was doing well.  We were sure we were headed for dead last today, but it sounded like we at least came in ahead of two other teams.  We weren't great, but perhaps we retained some dignity.  Bill had an absolutely awful and frustrating day.  I still couldn't find a putt at all, but my ball count was +3 for the day, better than the significant losses on the previous two days.

Weather remained very cold, with the final high only around 56 degrees.  Nevertheless, most of the time there was bright sun which helped when you emerged from the shadows, and we were blessed by not having any icy wind.  We were able to shed the most outer layers until late in the round, but still had plenty remaining.  With these more-difficult-than-desert courses, the time of play is much longer and we had another 5 1/2 hr round, out in the elements.

Our group lunch after the round was set up for outside, on a "heated" patio.  That meant we were on sort of a covered bridge with heat lamps.  We would have been better in the sun.  We were coveting the inside clubhouse and its warmth, wondering why they thought our group could possibly want to eat outside, especially in today's weather and with our 3:15 finish time.  Needless to say, we didn't linger over lunch - ate and ran back to the car and headed for our comfy condo.  These late lunches are wreaking havoc with our calorie intake when dinner is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.

Today was supposed to be the lowest temperature point in our stay, so we're looking forward to even a slight advance in the temperature in the coming days.

Dateline:  Friday, 9/16/11, Deerwood, Minnesota

Another day of golf is under our belt.  Today we had the luxury of having the course only about 8 minutes away, so we didn't have to leave the comfy condo quite so early.  The weather was still brisk and a little windy, adding to the cold feel.  When we arrived at the course, then they decided that they had to have a frost delay.  They didn't have the driving range open, and chased us off the putting green due to frost on the grass (which really was just wetness by the time we got there).  As we were waiting around, a few non-group people were allowed to tee off on the first tee, but, since our shotgun start was using holes 16-18, we still had to wait as those holes allegedly were not yet ready.  Hmphf!  Seemed more like accommodation for some locals rather than a real issue.  They at least condescended to open the driving range to entertain us for a while.  After about a 45 delay from our start time, they shifted us to different holes to start.  Duh!  They couldn't have figured that out earlier, given the fact that there appeared to be no one else out on the course, other than the guys we just saw on the first tee?  Yeah - I was little miffed at how things were handled, but it eventually worked out.

Course of the day was Cuyuna Country Club.  My initial impression was low-grade municipal course quality due to the lack of scenic landscaping and condition of fairways which often had some seriously swampy areas.  In addition, the cart paths, fairways and roughs must have settled unevenly over the past 50 years without any attempt to smooth them out in this century.  The carts were gas-powered with significant lag time in going forward (pretty good about sliding backward when not desired) and extremely jerky in their movements.  For those of us with lower back problems (ME!), the result was a quite painful ride throughout the day.  I was a single in a cart, and would have accepted my partners' offer to drive and let me walk, but I didn't want to burden them with the issue of getting my clubs to me each shot.  Besides, what else would I have to complain about?

In spite of the perceived lower quality of this course, it was not easy by any definition.  It had a lot of sloping fairways, doglegs with marshes at the corner to swallow errant balls, blind shots, and surprise bunkers or water hazards in front of the green, not visible until you were upon them, or probably in them.  This was a course that presented serious challenges for first time players of the course.  Sky Caddie was no help - it did not have the course layout visually available, only the yardage.  Natually our carts did not have a GPS device or even a yardage book to check out the terrain in advance of hitting.  The map on the back of the scorecard was tiny enough to be engraved on a grain of rice, so it wasn't much help either.  Thankfully we were playing a scramble format today, so there was some relief from shots that went astray or into unforeseen trouble, assuming at least one person had a safe shot.  Generally people had a good time with their teams, being able to focus on the team effort rather than inidividual travails.

The facility redeemed itself with a nice hot lunch of ribs and side dishes, in a nice warm room.  If this place had tried to feed us outside, there most likely would have been a major rebellion.

Although the skies clouded up intermittently, the wind came and went but never at terribly bothersome levels, and the coldish temperature (predicted high of around 62) remained constant, the environment was not terribly adverse.  Perhaps we are becoming accustomed to wearing 4 layers of clothes and trying hard not to focus on weather conditions.  Nevertheless, we are welcoming the next two days of no golf.  Bill is especially welcoming a full day of Sunday football when I have promised to leave him totally alone with his sports obsession.  Some rain is predicted for Sunday which would be a fine day to dispense with the wet stuff.  Monday is supposed to be a singular warm day which may give us one more chance at playing without wrapping up like the Pillsbury Doughboy.

Dateline:  Sunday, 9/18/11, Deerwood, Minnesota

The greater Brainerd Lakes area in which we are located is probably a wonderful place during the sunnier parts of the summer, but is not too inspiring when the weather turns cold, dreary and windy.  None of the lakes are particularly stunning in the overcast and the wind coming off the water makes the day seem even colder.  Although the temperature was not terrible this weekend, the cold wind on Saturday and the fairly constant light rain on Sunday did not inspire us to do anything.  Most if not all of the activities in the area are outdoor oriented, which doesn't leave much to do other than drive multiple hours to a bigger city.  We were not so inclined to do much driving, so we settled for just an afternoon movie in nearby Baxter on Saturday, and a thrilling day on Sunday involving doing laundry and watching sports on TV.  I couldn't even get motivated enough to change clothes and go to the lodge to use the singular treadmill.  The lack of exercise lately is not a good thing.

The Ruttger's Lodge remains incredibly busy this late in the season.  Several large groups came and went last week, but the crowd was more than replenished this afternoon.  The dining room at dinner was packed and noisy.  It was already hard enough to navigate around last week's group to get in and out of the buffet, or to get enough water to drink from the servers, but tonight's crowd made it rather unpleasant. The noise level was actually painful, so we mostly ate and ran back to the comfy condo for Sunday night football and the Emmys, which seemed to be the most boring show in its history.

The weather forecast for nice weather remains in effect for tomorrow - actually above 70 degrees for a day.  We're looking forward to seeing the sun again, playing golf in a single layer of clothes, and not having to de-ice after the round.  Let's hope it turns out ok before the clouds and rain return for another few days.

Dateline:  Monday, 9/19/11, Deerwood, Minnesota

Well, weather in Minnesota certainly is schizophrenic.  After the weekend's dreariness and light rain, this morning was bright and sunny.  We must have had some more significant rain in the early morning hours, however, because all of the grassy areas were extremely wet and soggy.  The temperature was relatively comfortable even at the breakfast hour, and then continued to improve throughout the day to its predicted low 70s.  It wouldn't be so strange to have a nice day after the rain, but tomorrow's prediction is back to more rain, iintermittent thundershowers, and wind with possible gusts up to 40 mph.  We're playing at an area called Breezy Point, which doesn't bode well for the wind factor.  Today's pleasant weather was but a brief intermission between strangeness.  We can't decide if summer is really over or just teasing the residents with hints of autumn to come.

The course definitely presented challenges again today.  Once again, there was hardly any flat land on the course, coupled with many blind shots.  It is certainly hard to plan strategy (much less execute it) when you have no idea what lies over the next hill.  The middle of all of the fairways was very swampy from the rain, and the long rough was wet and clingy.  Although the course slope was only 120 for women, it seemed like at least 10 points more.  Perhaps Minnesota has its own relative rating system.  My lowering handicap will certainly back to more realistic levels after the scores are posted from this trip!  We had the usual number of trick shots, bouncing off trees, off cartpaths, and even one restroom building that actually left me with a good shot.  Our Sky Caddie refused to acknowledge that we had downloaded this course, so we were often in a quandary as to the appropriate distance (not that we could capitalize on it even when we did know it).  In general, the day was a struggle, seriously eroding our waning confidence in the ability to hit anything straight, long, or over obstacles.  I'm afraid we weren't of much help to our teammates in the best ball format, but they were gracious and supportive of our struggles.

The sunlight did make the course much more attractive.  We wound around either a number of lakes, or parts of the same lake, that looked much nicer with bright blue reflections from the sky rather than dreary gray.  A few more of the trees were starting to turn color, allowing us a few surprise glimpses of bright orange here and there.  A fisherman sat out on one of the lakes for several hours, at first making us wonder if he were really alive, or just a nice picturesque sculpture in the middle of the water.  He finally moved and that resolved the issue.  We appreciated the great greenery and imaginative design of the course;  we only wish we were up to the challenge.

We've posted a few pictures from today to show how much better the lakes looked in bright light.

Dateline:  Tuesday, 9/20/11, Deerwood, Minnesota

We have survived the golf portion of the trip and the many variations on Minnesota weather.  As predicted, we had rain and wind today, although not in the quantities that we had feared.  The skies were uniformly grey most of the day, with the occasional peek of sunshine or, in the alternative, dark, threatening clouds.  We were all doing our rain dance around breakfast, hoping that the rain would start before we had to tee off so we could avoid a potential drenching.  Of course, that didn't work out.  We teed off and were okay for a few holes, then the rain started, but only lasted another few holes.  We toughed it out and just had to deal with temperatures and occasional gusts of wind the rest of the day.

Today's course was called Deacon's Lodge in the town of Breezy Point, somewhere down the Paul Bunyan Unscenic Byway.  We were never sure where the Point was, but we definitely encountered a few breezes, although not apparently coming off any particular body of water.  The course was somewhat more forgiving today, with wider fairways and fewer obstacles to cross in the fairways or in front of the greens.  The men still had some mighty long brushy areas to carry from the tee; women were given a good advantage and didn't usually have a problem.  There were still blind shots aplenty, severe side slopes, long rough, elevated greens, and some very narrow landing areas.  The terrain often curved downslope so much that you just couldn't get your ball high enough not to roll all the way down, unless you were fortunate enough to lob it onto the green on the approach shot.  Bill and I played a little better today, even though being a little intimidated by being paired with the group president who is a fine golfer.  We rose somewhat to the occasion and didn't embarass ourselves totally.  Bill was thinking of pulling a Sergio Garcia and breaking his Jekyll & Hyde fairway wood, but he restrained himself.

We finished with a nice hot lunch inside the clubhouse, starting out with some superheated soup.  Boy, did that taste good today!  We weren't really freezing from our round because we wore so many layers, but it was nice to get out of the great outdoors and into a warm environment with hot food. 

We left the clubhouse earlier than most folks and took a short drive down the road past our lodge just to see what was there.  The road's name was intriguing - Tame Fish Lake Road.  I had thought that it deadended very soon at some other condos run by Ruttger's Lodge, but the road continued on as a county highway, and then had smaller offshoot roads that ran closer to the lake.  We thought at this point that we might as well circumnavigate the lake.  Well, things got a little complicated with all the twists and turns of the road, and multiple lakes in the area, and we didn't have our MN map in the car.  It was also starting to rain lightly.  We eventually found a familiar highway and found our way home before we had to stop and ask the GPS for assistance.

When we got back to the condo and had our arms loaded with the day's worth of extra garments, we discovered that our card key no longer worked.  So, back to the lodge!  They had originally shown us as checking out today, but supposedly corrected that when we arrived, and redid our card keys for the extra day.  Not done so well, as it turned out.  At least they didn't have us as a checkout for the cleaning crew, so the rest of our worldly belongings that we didn't wear today were left intact.

So, tonight we pack up and tomorrow we hit the road towards Austin, Minnesota.  Any one care to guess what is in Austin?  No, we're not looking for any more golf courses in the foreseeable future.  Stay tuned for tomorrow's quirky highlight.

Dateline:  Wednesday, 9/21/11, Austin, Minnesota

After a final buffet breakfast at Ruttger's at which we once again consumed far more calories than was biologically necessary, we had to deal with a little adversity.  Yesterday we received a telephone call from our credit card company about some suspected fraud on our credit card.  This seems to be an intermittent problem, causing us to cancel our credit card and have it reissued every two years or so.  We recently managed to convince the company not to cancel the card when there was just one stray charge that we hopefully attributed to number input error.  We reviewed our account online and discovered one pending charge that was not ours.  Hopeful again of being able to retain our existing card, Bill called the company this morning to chat, and got the good/bad news.  The bad news was that someone(s) had tried to charge two large amounts to our card, in the amounts of $9300 and $4700, and that the card really did need to be cancelled.  This is always an annoyance as we have numerous internet sites linked to our credit card.  Mr. Bill, superfan that he is, needs his CDM and other accounts active to deal with his many fantasy teams.  The good news was that the charges had been immediately decliined, so we won't have to deal with the whole reversal process which often takes a while, involves affidavits, and causes overdue fees to be initially incurred.  The fraudulent pending charge was also addressed and will be immediately reversed.   The other issue is that we don't really travel with another credit card, per se, so we'll have to see how the debit cards fare, or revert to a cash basis (horrors!).

On that note, we packed the car, bid adieu to our comfy condo, and hit the road south.  It was another very grey day, with intermittent rain and drizzles most of the day.  We were happy not to have golf scheduled today which would have been more unpleasant than any of our other weather days.

We have a few days to kill before meeting up with Mike McGath (fantasy player Art Vandelay) on Saturday, so we're seeing a bit more of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Destination today was Austin, MN, home of the - wait for it - Spam Museum!  We like the quirky and different sites.  How many people can say they've been to, much less heard of, the Spam Museum?  Actually, it was very enjoyable.

Austin is home to the Hormel Meat Packing Company, maker of Spam and all Hormel products, and owner of a variety of other food concerns such as Jenny O turkey products, Stagg chili, Farmer John, Dinty Moore, and Healthy Choice deli meats.  The plant is huge.  According to the museum trivia, 26 football fields could fit inside the plant, and around 4 million pounds of meat products is produced each day.

The Spam Museum, opened only in 2002, illustrates the history of the development of the Hormel company and the introduction and uses of Spam. The name is derived from a contraction of "spiced" and "ham".   The product is made from pork shoulder and the parts made into ham.  It was introduced around 1936, and became a major staple food for the armed forces in World War II, and was sent in abundance as part of aid packages to the U.S. allies.  For a while, Hormel company had an entertainment/sales force of women who sang, danced, played instruments, touted the merits of Hormel, and even had a radio show.  The company has always been very innovative and forward-looking.

The Spam Museum itself was very clever and enjoyable.  The building is bright and shiny, all done in the trademark Spam blue and yellow. There is a track running around the entire space on which Spam cans travel around the room.  The interactive "diner" has computer screens for the Spam websites, navigated by pushing the pat of butter button and rolling the egg yolk trackball.  The door to the video room has handles and windows that cause you to take a second look, and see the face of a pig.  We learned lots about Spam and Hormel, all of it interesting.  Who knew Spam comes in so many flavors?  We may actually have to try some when we get home.  Bill avows that he has never had it (but I think Cyndi Tanaka may have slipped some to him sometime) and I haven't had it since I was a child.

Bill took a few pictures at and around the museum, but our photo transfer cable stayed in the car tonight, and it's too cold to go out again and get it.  We'll catch up on photos tomorrow.

Tonight we actually went out to a nice restaurant for dinner.  (Notable menu item:  deep-fried Spamn appetizer.)  Fortunately, we went early enough to get a table when the place was totally booked about an hour later.  The restaurant was The Old Mill, situated alongside the Red Cedar River right where the water falls over a small dam.  Actually, the water doesn't fall over the rim, but comes through a myriad of holes in the retaining wall.  It was very picturesque, and probably will be very stunning as soon as the trees turn color.  Unfortunately, we hadn't thought to bring the camera to dinner with us.  So, we settled for a nice dinner with a great view, and threaded our way out of the waiting crowd upon our exit.  Not a bad day with a little travel time, an interesting and educational stop, and a lovely dinner.

Dateline:  Thursday, 9/22/11, Madison, Wisconsin

This was the kind of day we like - numerous stops, some good photo ops, and a reasonable amount of miles covered between Austin and Madison.

We started off on the interstate for the first 2 hours. As we crossed the Mississippi (wow- wide at that point), we could see the change in the topography starting with the bluffs allong the river. On the Wisconsin side, we got a first major dose of the changing fall colors. It was still in the early stages but is was pretty spectacular. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to stop for pictures when we were cruising at 70 miles per hour.  We then were able to branch off onto state highways which were totally delightful. We had left the scenery of our Minnesota area behind, and exchanged it for a more varied terrain.  Yes, there were still miles of cornfields waiting to be plowed under, but we discovered a new crop - soybeans.  Lots of those as well.  The terrain was much more interesting, however. 

The southwestern area of Wisconsin is known as the Driftless Region, an area skipped by the glaciers during the Ice Age.  While much of the surrounding states are flat due to glacial movement, this area actually has contours, rock bluffs, and forests.  We rolled along the back roads, enjoyed more of the changing leaf color on the trees, watched as the agricultural farms became interspersed with dairy farms, and thought many of the little towns bisected by the "highway" were very quaint.  I especially liked many of the old barns that have been left to weather and deteriorate, finally collapsing in their own time.  Perhaps it saves the cost of demolition.  We stopped in Hillsboro to admire a few of the Victorian houses we saw from the road, and observed even more interesting architecture as we wandered around for a few blocks.  It was still rather cold to us, around 48 degrees, so we didn't spend a lot of time outdoors.

Lunch was in the town of Richland Center, originally a destination for us to visit a cheese factory.  The factory appeared to have closed, but it was a good time to stop anyway.  We had lunch at the "Fiesta Fe" cafe, a Tex-Mex restaurant.  Mexican food in Wisconsin - hmmmm.  It was nourishing and filling, but rather bland.  However, the establishment was very nice - hardwood floors, high ceilings, fans, room bathed in natural sunlight, etc.  It would have fit right in around Old Town Pasadena, but for the bland flavor.

Richland Center is also the birthplace of Frank Lloyd Wright, and he returned as an adult to design several of the buildings in the historic section of town, including a hotel, the County government building, and a warehouse.  Walking around was another nice break from driving.  Bill has pulled a muscle in his back, so that, combined with my perpetual back issues, doesn't make for long comfortable driving days.

Our final stop was at a cheese factory in Avery.  Unfortunately, we were too late to see them making cheese because we had made too many other stops.  We allayed our disappointment by buying some genuine Wisconsin cheese, with plans for a lighter dinner.  We also sampled cheese curds, known for their squeaky quality.  They were right - they squeaked in my mouth.  Fun!

Tonight we're in the outer environs of Madison, with plans to visit the capital city tomorrow.  We have a nice room with a separate sitting area and an actual working thermostat, so we can stay warm again tonight.  We managed to book two nights in town before the onslaught of University of Wisconsin Badger fans descend for the Saturday game.  We're hoping for a little warmer weather so we can wander around in greater comfort tomorrow.

New photos have been posted - Spam Museum yesterday and today's Wisconsin roamings.

Dateline:  Friday, 9/24/11, Madison, Wisconsin

We enjoyed our day visiting Madison, the capital city of Wisconsin.  Although we had planned to do more tourist destinations, the time kind of got away from us, so we only had two major stops, and one minor one.

Getting into the middle of Madison was not too bad a chore this morning.  We are always pleasantly surprised when traffic in major cities is not in perpetual gridlock.  I guess driving around Los Angeles for so many years trained us well, and anything less than traffic chaos is rather manageable.  Madison had a lot of one way streets down in the capitol building area, and a street design that radiates at odd angles out from the center (reminiscent of Washington, DC), but we managed to navigate around without major difficulty.  After all, we really only wanted to dump the car in a parking lot not too far from the center of things, and spend the day walking around.  We accomplished that goal with only a few minor missteps, but ended up in a perfectly acceptable location.

Our first stop was the state's capitol building and a free morning guided tour that started at 10 a.m.  We found an appropriate entrance and the information desk in the rotunda, and joined about 20 high school kids, possibly some of which were foreign students, there for the tour, and a few other miscellaneous people.  We initially followed a pre-school group into the building, wondering if they were in fact going for the tour as well.  However, after promptly lying down on the floor of the rotunda to admire the ceiling, they were soon gone.  They did seem a little young to be interested in the history and function of the building.

The building was quite marvelous.  It is very ornate, with a whole lot of marble from around the world, and gold leaf covering many of the paintings and mosaics.  The dome itself is one of the largest in the U.S., and the one that most closely resembles the U. S. Capitol dome.  The building is also extremely functional, housing both the State Assembly and Senate, Governor's offices, and the state Supreme Court.  There was an amazing lack of security which we learned was the normal state.  How nice.

This particular version of the capitol was finished about 1917, built on the grounds of the previous building that was destroyed by fire.  It has incorporated a lot of natural sunlight via the use of skylights and decorative glass ceilings, almost Tiffany style.  Classic style paintings in the various rooms abound, both on the walls and on the ceilings.  We were able to see the Governor's conference room, the Senate room, the Supreme Court room, and a general hearing room, as well as the area around the rotunda.  At the conclusion of the tour, we went up another two floors to the outside observation deck.  There we could see across the city of Madison, and catch a glimpse of the two lakes between which the city is situated.

A six block pedestrian mall extends from the capitol towards the campus of the University of Wisconsin.  It is full of small shops and innumerable restaurants of all ethnic persuasions.  It is an interesting integration of government center and campus extension.  As one got closer to the school, there was a definite change towards the more marginal elements of the population.

The city of Madison, or at least the parts surrounding the capital, is remarkable in its mundane appearance.  Although the capitol grounds are quite nice, and it is situated for access from many sides, the surrounding area is not particularly interesting architecturally or even very attractive.  It seemed more like any old nondescript city rather than the center of a state.  Other than the Monona Center we visited later, the only other building of interest we saw was the Overture Center for the Arts, a grand glass edifice that also housed the Museum of Modern Art.

After lunch we joined a tour of the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center.  This may well be the best $3 we ever spent, especially for a tour.  The building sits on a site overhanging Lake Monona some 90 feet.  Originally, Frank Lloyd Wright was asked to design a plan for a convention complex in Madison, which he did in 1939.  However, due to lack of voter approval for funding, the complex was not built in his lifetime.  Finally, funding was secured in 1994, and the building opened in 1997.  An apprentice of Wright, Tony Putnam, took Wright's original plans and implemented them.  The building, which looks very modern by today's standards, is amazingly consistent with Wright's plans.  Although Wright designed the complex on a grander scale, including such items as a railroad station, the concept still worked with the smaller version.

The Monona Center has many design concepts in common with the Guggenheim Museum of New York, also designed by Wright.  The curvilinear concept, aka more curves than straight lines, is very evident throughout the structure.  Lighting fixtures, windows, walls, conference tables, hallways, stair railings - all have curved elements.  You can even stand on the stairs and look up, and it looks like the curved galleries of the famous art museum.

Part of the requirement for the Center was that it not destroy the bike path access around Lake Monona.  Madison prides itself on being the bike capital of the states, even having little rent-a-bike racks adjacent to the omnipresent bike racks in front of all buildings.  Monona Center not only built a bike path that is part of the building on the lake side, but it also added a "bike elevator" for those cyclists wishing a shortcut through the building into downtown, rather than going down 4 blocks and over 4 blocks.

All of the conference rooms and large terrace areas have great panoramic views of the lake.  There is also a rooftop garden with a killer view, popular for weddings and other events.

The building has won awards for being innovative in its use of energy and other "green" concepts.  It works hard to regulate use of electricity only in areas when needed, recycles even the rainwater from the roof, and takes care to use leftover food from its catering operation.  It has state of the art everything!

We had a marvelous and enthusiastic tour guide who took us throughout the building, entranced us with his love of the architecture, and delivered tidbits about Frank Lloyd Wright.  No one was in a particular hurry to leave, so the tour ended up being close to 2 hours.

After our two major tours of the day, we decided that we were a little too tired to deal with the botanical gardens which previously had seemed inviting.  Besides, it was still rather chilly, and the overcast persisted, so daylight photographic options were waning by this time.  Thus, we headed to our alternative final stop.

After our visit to the Spam Museum the other day, we decided it would only be fitting to visit the National Mustard Museum.  Where do we find these things!  The NMM is in a small building in the town of Middleton, closer to where we are staying.  It is a very cute concept.  The first floor is a store with a gazillion types of mustards - some for straight use, some involving mustard as an ingredient for glazes, and whatever else one could think of.  Taste samples are liberally encouraged.  We tried some - some good, some not so good, and ended up setting aside two products for purchase.

The museum part was actually in the basement.  The walls are painted a vivid yellow - Classic Yellow Mustard of course.  They have an incredible collection of mustard bottles and tins from every state in the union, and many foreign countries.  There are also display cases of mustard pots, once in vogue - from funny ceramic jars to delicate cut crystal containers.  The informative video about a mustard club was shown in an area appropriately called the "Mustard Piece Theater."  We never cease to be amazed at the ingenuity of business people who can create something like this niche store.

Tired but happy with our day we returned to our hotel room to catch up on internet things (Bill), hit the fitness room to try to straighten out the kinks (Alice), then cleaned up and went out for a nice dinner.  As we left for dinner, we noticed the skies had almost totally cleared of clouds late in the day.  Where was all that nice weather while we were out and about today?

Tomorrow we're off to Green Lake, WI.  We'll be roughing it for the first time this trip - no internet access!

Dateline:  Sunday, 9/25/11, Dubuque, Iowa

As of this afternoon, we are officially on our way home.  We have reached our most easterly point on the trip, have turned south, and are winding our way back to the desert.

We had a great Saturday and Sunday with Mike McGath (Art Vandelay) and his girlfriend Donna. They had invited us to spend the weekend with them at their cabin at Green Lake, WI.  It was less than a two hour drive from Madison through some nice countryside.  Of course it had the usual - cornfields, red barns, brown silos, and white farmhouses, but the terrain was more undulating and the forested areas more prevalent.  We arrived around 11 a.m. and were warmly greeted by Mike and Donna, but their dog Wally seemed to object to our presence - repeatedly - as we reentered the house.

Mike and Donna have a great place right on the lake, a 2 bedroom house with cathedral windows facing the lake for a killer view on the water.  It must help to have more than 10,000 lakes in Wisconsin (surpasses Minnesota, but they don't advertise it).  With all the lake shoreline available, more people can have water access without having to pay the millions of dollars it would require in California.  The lake is moderate in size, and does not seem too crowded, either with houses or boats, a very nice environment.  Mike had a speedboat and a pontoon boat, but we wimpy Californians declined a water tour of the lake due to cold weather.

We got the grand tour around the lake via automobile, enjoying the view of all the houses, both moderate and lavish.  We went into the little town of Green Lake itself and found ourselves in the middle of a Harvest Festival.  We all knew it was going on, but Mike hadn't anticipated the quantity of people and cars that the festival brought in.  After we found a place to park, we walked around some, looking at the local vendor booths, and chuckling over some of the offerings, e.g. marshmallow shooters (the modern pea shooter?) made of decorated PVC pipe, buffalo meat, and deep fried cheese curds (not recommended after our sampling).  Mike and Bill tried their hand at hitting a golf ball into a rowboat anchored on the lake.  Bill got really close, but couldn't quite get it in;  Mike? - not so much.  The street band playing was pretty good, and the Shriners riding around on their little red motor scooters were classic.  We decided not to stay for the parade, however.  Bill took a few pictures around the vendor area, but wasn't fast enough retrieving the camera to capture the Shriners.

Dinner was difficult due to lots of people at our proposed place in town, but plan B in the outskirts worked just fine.  We finished our fine evening with a series of games back at the house.  It was great to find another couple who enjoy playing games as we do.  Bill proved quite adept at one of the trivia/speed type games, but our partnership failed dismally at finding correct answers in another game.  Nevertheless, we had fun, and even stayed up past 11 o'clock.

Sunday morning Bill was in his element - lots of sports on TV, and having a buddy next to him to talk sports.  The iPad provided the requisite minimum internet access, so last minute team tweaks were a possibility.  We went out to breakfast, then returned to let Bill be in proximity to the TV until it was time to leave at halftime.  It was a perfect football watching day - a little rainy outside, a nice fire indoors, and a warm dog who had reluctantly decided that Bill could stay, at least for a little while.

We left in the afternoon to head for Dubuque, IA, our selected destination for the night, and found more of the rainstorm that had invaded Green Lake.  We didn't want to have to travel too many miles in the afternoon, but wanted to get a little jump on the homeward journey, then settle in for the remainder of Sunday football and golf.  It was also Bill's birthday today, so he got to set the schedule.

The next two days we are going to drive as much as we can stand.  We have about 1,000 miles to cover to get to Amarillo by Tuesday night, so we anticipate an early departure and short rest stops with no interesting stops for the duration.  Our southerly route should take care of the inclement weather issue, and we're happy to be heading back to the warmer climes!  Although we have enjoyed ourselves in Minnesota and Wisconsin, this changing of the seasons stuff is overrated.

Dateline:  Monday, 9/26/11, Emporia, Kansas

I never thought I'd be happy to be in Kansas again, Toto, but here we are - warm and happy in Emporia, Kansas, about an hour southwest of Kansas City, KS.  And, contrary to my last two passes of Kansas, we have had no encounters with state troopers, and hope to keep it that way.

Today was just a long driving day, and it started out with ominous weather.  It was pouring outside as we needed to load the car.  I volunteered to go retrieve it from the lot and bring in under the lobby overhang.  Even the overhang didn't provide much relief from the driving, somewhat sideways rain, and we both got rather wet in the departure process.  It took almost two hours of driving to outrun the rain as it appeared to be a substantial storm over much of the area.  Waterspouts were sighted on Lake Michigan, so it was even worse in the north.  Thankfully, we were traveling south.

We had to stick to interstates today, so there was nothing much to see or do, just follow the taillights in the rain, then drive quickly when it cleared.  We had our usual assortment of quick rest stops, and have voted Iowa as consistently having the best rest stops - innovative in their design, educational in their decorations, and impeccably clean.

We found our last rest stop in Missouri and were able to step outside the car without a jacket for the first time in three weeks.  The temperature was actually a little over 70 degrees - still windy, but much warmer.  By the time we stopped for the day, the temp was 75.  Bliss!

There was no particular reason for selecting Emporia for the night, other than its location.  It has some history in the area, but we have no time for that.  We're also sad to be missing a big event tomorrow - the circus is in town!  We had set Kansas City as our minimum goal today, but had enough time and energy to keep going which will make tomorrow's drive about equal to today's.  For some reason, our iPod isn't charging in the car, and our audio book had to be terminated early today.  Hopefully tonight's in-room charge will give us a few hours of company tomorrow to help the miles whiz past.  Destination tomorrow night - Amarillo TX.

Dateline:  Tuesday, 9/27/11, Amarillo, Texas

We have passed from the land of barns and silos to the lands of, well, not much.  Today's interstates did not go through farm or ranch land, although we did see the occasional small herd of cattle grazing.  The rest of Kansas was traversed via a turnpike, requiring a payment for the privilege of traveling on it.  I thought interstates were all free in this part of the country, but apparently not.  They did have good services, however, with gas stations/food/restrooms in the middle of the freeway, accessible from both sides, at reasonable intervals.

Then there was Oklahoma.  We put on the country music station for cruising, and enjoyed such classics as "I Can Give You a Ride on My Big Green Tractor"  (...through the mud, and down to the pasture...)  We discovered that the state doesn't seem to know the meaning of rest stops, other than the parking areas in which truckers can pull off the road for a while.  The state must assume the commercial truck stops, TA and Love's, are sufficient to act as the rest areas, and there is no need for state money to support other alternatives.  And, judging by the one rest stop we did find, the state was definitely not supporting it much.

It was still a little interesting driving through Oklahoma.  Miscellaneous observations:  The soil is a very rich red, visible where the fields have been scraped or prepared for planting.  There is a local Indian presence in the form of Cherokee trading posts, and then an area of the Cheyenne/Arapaho nation.  One educational billboard informed us that the shopping cart was invented in the great state of Oklahoma.  Given the oil reserves of the state, gas price was a respectable $3.40-ish.  And, I-40 parallels some of what once was the Chisholm Trail, as well as the historic Route 66.  Yukon, OK is the home of Garth Brooks, and one of the OU campuses houses the Wrestling Hall of Fame.  Darn, missed another good one, as well as the National Route 66 Museum.

Going over the border into Texas, the terrain changed once again.  The red soil disappeared, replaced by the plain old brown stuff.  The land was not used for anything obvious, and was frequently dotted with scrub oak trees.  Even the roadkill animals changed, from the plentiful raccoons and skunks we had been seeing everywhere, to armadillo.  Actually, we only saw one armadillo, then the raccoons reappeared.  This stretch of I-40 had very minimal traffic which was quite nice.

The best part of our day was dinner in Amarillo.  We had seen many signs for "The Big Texan", home of the "free" 72 oz. steak.  We were intrigued, and decided to give it a try when we found it was near where we stopped for the night.  It was quite a place - all decorated in western decor, all personnel in cowboy attire, and most everything big, befitting the Texas theme.  It purports to be a landmark from the Route 66 days, established in 1960.  The 72 oz. steak is free to anyone who can eat the whole thing within 60 minutes.  They even have timers on the wall for the challengers.  Our cowboy waiter said there is usually 1 or 2 each night who try it, and more on the weekends.  Only 1 in 30 persons is able to finish the steak.   Price for not completing the meal?  $72.  We opted for substantially smaller filets which were cooked perfectly to our liking.  We dined to the strains of a local (geriatric) cowboy trio which wandered about the room, a la mariachi singers.  They weren't great, and didn't smile a whole lot, but it still added to the ambiance.  It was quaint and we were happy we had gone there.  When in Texas, you have to go big!

Dateline:  Wednesday, 9/28/11, Roswell, New Mexico

From Amarillo, we dropped down south to Lubbock about two hours away.  Bill has made many internet friends over the years, and when we travel, we always look at the address list to see if a visit to any of the pool players would be feasible.  We have met some wonderful people with this method, and our luck continued today.

Lubbock, Texas is the home town of CARLOS, aka Jim Hansen, a delightful person who plays in Bill's pools, and posts on the forum as CARLOS, often talking about action in the "cabana" as reasons why the golfers aren't doing so well.  He especially likes to tease another of the posters, Art Vandelay (really Mike McGath) that we just visited in Green Lake, Wisconsin.

Jim gave us a warm Texas welcome, as did everyone else we encountered today.  Lots of "y'all"s were floating around, used liberally in the soft, southern-sounding Texas accent.  Of course, we were probably the ones with the accent today.  Jim took us to lunch overlooking the city, and then had some time to drive us around and show us his lovely city, including Texas Tech, his alma mater.  He and Bill seemed to have a great time talking fantasy teams and current football issues.

After Jim sadly had to go back to work, we continued on to the Buddy Holly Center.  Lubbock is Holly's home town, so of course there is Buddy Holly Avenue and Crickets Avenue.  The Center was nice, but not great.  It had a lot of information to read, all of which was displayed very attractively, but could have benefited from some interactive displays or more tableaus.  Still, as this was Bill's favorite music era, he enjoyed all the information and naturally bought a tee shirt to commemorate his visit.

We had about another three hours drive to get to Roswell.  Boy, if we thought some of the other roads were boring, we just hadn't found this one yet.  Flat and empty, followed by more flat and empty.  Just as we were both almost lulled to sleep, we noticed some dark threatening clouds in the distance.  We thought they were off our track, but the road soon turned and headed right for them.  We could see portions of the dark clouds reaching to the ground, apparently signifying areas of rain.  Then, we started to see lightning bolts reaching to the ground.  That was a treat - light daylight with ground strikes!  Not too soon after that, we had to drive through the weather front, and that caught our attention and woke us up.  There were very brief intervals of driving rain with minimal visibility, gusts of wind that caused me to grip the wheel more securely, and alternate periods of light and dark.  We wanted something interesting, and then we got it.  We had laughed about the signs that advised to watch for water on the road, given the fact that the area looked like it was in year 3 of a drought.  Now we understand - flash floods and intermittent sudden storms were a definite possibility.

Anyway, Roswell finally appeared as a reflecting presence in the distance, looking like a space station off in the land of nowhere.  We can understand how UFOs might choose this place as it is wide open and next to nothing.  As we entered the approach to the city, there were actually orchards on both sides of the road, items we had not seen on this trip to date.  There were also some really junky yards, which didn't bode too well.  However, things got better as we got closer in to the city, and started traversing the main street in search of our lodgings.  Things looked much more normal.

Roswell is home to the New Mexico Military Institute, apparently a well-respected establishment.  It certainly looked imposing with all of its sandstone buildings with crennelated castle-like tops, parade and athletic grounds.  Another claim to fame is being the dairy capital of the southwest.  That wouldn't even seem likely but for the essence of cow that seems to permeate the air.  We haven't seen the dairy farms, but they must not be too far away.

We're here for two nights, allowing ourselves plenty of time to visit the UFO Museum tomorrow.  We also hope to avail ourselves of some walking trails and get a little exercise in the morning.  Hopefully no hovering craft will try to beam us up while we're here.

Dateline:  Thursday, 9/29/11, Roswell, New Mexico

Roswell is not such a bad little place.  We found the local park this morning that was supposed to have some 5 miles of bike/hike trails, and set off on a pleasant walk.  We got to see some of the residential areas of Roswell, or at least the older parts of same - smaller houses, a variety of construction, largish lots, and some overgrown areas.  The city could benefit from some renovation projects.  The bike path meanders along the Spring River (for which the park is named), but the river is really a concrete channel cleared in parts for the bike path which occasionally goes up and down it, but otherwise has only a small trickle of moving water and lots of algae and weeds.  At one point we missed the connection for the next segment of the path and found ourselves back on the city streets, and then semi-rural roads. We also found the source of the cow essence not too far from our hotel  I thought the connected zoo part of the park was nearby (it wasn't!) and we tried in vain to find it for a while.  Eventually we decided to backtrack and head back to the car.

On our way back we stopped in at the local art museum which was on the path.  It was a lovely building - very modern, clean, sharp lines, and nice gallery areas.  The art was just okay - nothing profound or which especially caught our eye.  But, the admission was free, so it was definitely worth the stop.  That's Roswell - some really nice stuff mixed in with some not so great.

One of the interesting points along our path was the observation point for the "iron cross."  We learned that there was a German POW camp near Roswell during World War II.  Approximately 4800 prisoners were brought from Rommel's army in North Africa.  They spent the rest of the war doing projects such as lining the river channel with rocks on the sidebanks.  During the course of the project, they placed rocks in the form of the iron cross.  The local inhabitants took exception to this design and put concrete over it.  Eventually, the covering wore away, and the design is now visible again.  Who knew there were German POWs in the United States, much less New Mexico?  Must have been a much better alternative than finishing out the war in Africa and Europe.

Back in the car, we set out to find the zoo. We had gotten to within a mile of the place,  but it still would have been a long walk.  The zoo was interesting, primarily because it was in Roswell.  They allegedly featured native animals, and did have some foxes, beavers, coyotes, and prairie dogs, and a really cute burrowing owl, but the varieties of deer and a llama didn't quite fit the category.  The larger corral areas featured Texas longhorn cattle, and some small horses - not miniature, but not full size either.  It was an eclectic mix, but free, and the morning weather was nice for outdoor activity.

After lunch we visited the UFO Museum.  Roswell is famous for a UFO sighting/crash July 4, 1947, followed by recovery of some debris by a local rancher, and, slightly later, alleged bodies of aliens.  After a few days, the local Army folks from the Roswell Army Air Field clamped down on the discovery, spirited away everything that was recovered, and, according to affidavits, severely threatened everyone that had anything to do with the issue with dire consequences if they continued to speak about the incident.  The Army's version was that a weather balloon had gone down, and it presented torn balloon material as "evidence" from the recovery.  The museum presented the issue in a very professional and factual manner, encouraging the visitor to decide for himself what happened.  It seems obvious that the government covered up something, whether it be aliens or some secret government project.

The town has capitalized on the UFO issue.  Various establishments have spacecraft design or green alien statues;  even Arby's has a permanent sign that says "aliens welcome."  It's a bit of a quirky place. 

By this time, we were getting a little tired of running around, so we retired to our hotel.  The skies were getting interesting by this time - bright blue with puffy white clouds on one side of the street, and dark threatening storm clouds on the other.  Almost as soon as we hit our room, the wind picked up and howled around our window for about an hour.  We never did get any rain, but noticed that the car was seriously covered in dust from the windstorm when we went out for dinner.  Perhaps that last 100 miles of nothingness approaching Roswell all got blown into town this afternoon.  Holing up in the room during that period was really an example of excellent timing.

The big event in Roswell today was the grand opening of the new Burger King.  They either were giving away food or had seriously low prices, because the drive-in thru line was backed up down the street, and the walk-in lines were out the door from lunch through dinner.  Given the fact that there are many other restaurants and fast food establishments in the immediate vicinity, it's hard to imagine why this opening was drawing the crowds.  Alien burgers, perhaps?

Today marked the last day alloted for real tourism.  We have two days left before we reach home, and will be driving approximately 400 miles each day.  Tomorrow we're going through a part of Arizona where we haven't been before in hopes that it will at least be scenic, but that's actually unknown.  We just heard on the news that the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta is this weekend, but it's too late to detour that direction.  Darn - wish we had thought to check the dates on that before we planned the trip!  Nevertheless, we're ready to head home, unpack, and start the probably much-needed diet.

We've posted our last few pictures at the Picasa site.  If we find any scenery tomorrow, we'll add a few more.

Dateline:  Friday, 9/30/11, Globe, Arizona

Ah, the final night in a motel.  We completed our long day of driving today and are looking forward to a shorter, faster trip tomorrow to complete the journey home.

We intentionally selected some alternate routes through New Mexico and Arizona for one more possibly scenic day.  Our highways were scenic the first two hours or so, and the last two hours or so, but not so much in between.

Leaving Roswell, we confirmed our belief that the place is truly out in the middle of nowhere.  It had been desolate approaching it from the east, and it was equally desolate leaving towards the west on US 380.  After not a terribly long time, however, the road left the barren high plains area and went through a verdant, green river valley.  No longer could we see all the way to Mexico, just into the valley alongside the road and the hills on our other side that defined the road.  We got into horse country - lots of corrals, white fences, barns and horses.  Bill said Ruidoso - sort of in the area - is a big venue for quarter horse racing, thus, all the horse ranches.

The road was also historic in nature by virtue of some of the little towns.  The two most notable were Lincoln - a state historic site with a number of late 19th century buildings, including the courthouse/jail from which Billy the Kid made his final escape, and Capitan, where Smokey the Bear was first discovered clinging to a tree after the area had been devastated by a forest fire and is now home to the Smokey the Bear Museum and assorted shops involving the name.  Another notable site was Fort Stanton, which had been commanded at different times by a diverse group that included Army soldiers led by John Pershing (not yet a general), confederate soldiers, New Mexico volunteers led by Kit Carson, and a contingent of Buffalo Soldiers.

The middle part of the day was somewhat of a challenge.  We stopped in Socorro to buy lunch for later and to top off the tank.  There are no warning signs anywhere along the road about the lack of services, gas or otherwise, but the wise traveler looking at the map realizes that venturing out into the back of beyond on US 60 without a full tank is definitely not advisable.  Many of the little towns listed on the map are barely a blip on the radar, if they still exist at all.  It seemed like we didn't see a gas station for about 100 miles, so we were happy to have a full tank.   Finding a place to eat our lunch was also a challenge.  Rest stops, other than the occasional picnic bench and/or trash can, do not exist on US highways, only interstates.  There are some marked on the map, but they were figments of the mapper's imagination.  We ended up stopping just past the continental divide summit at about 7700 feet in a "town" (5 or 6 buildings) called Pie Town (Bill thought Pie Hole was a more appropriate name).  They apparently have a big pie festival in early September, and had a (very rundown, dirt-based) picnic area in which we stopped to consume our lunch.  Hard to believe that would be a popular venue at any point in time.  But, there were picnic benches, no bugs, and the weather was a mild 69 degrees and sunny.

Throughout the day we were on the high plateau that is New Mexico and part of Arizona.  As we entered the latter part of the day, heading south towards Globe, Arizona, we traversed a very pretty area known as Salt-River canyon. The area became very rugged with sandstone and red cliffs, a deep gorge, and lots of forest.  It was scenic, but photos were not really possible because we had hit our afternoon lightning and rain storm and the lovely canyon walls were all in shadow even when it wasn't raining.  We stopped for one photo when it was dry and nearly got blown off the cliff, the winds were so strong.  We also feared for the car doors when trying to open them to return to the car.  We finally gave up trying to sightsee and just wanted to finish the day's journey.  The road was very slow, with speeds sometimes as slow as 35 mph due to the twists and turns, and the occasional driver towing something who feared use of the gas pedal.

We finished up in Globe, still at an elevation of around 4400 feet, so we haven't gotten all the way down off the plateau, but we've made progress.  We're just on the outskirts of Globe, so we don't have a real sense of the town.  Our motel is situated on a hillside, and it looks like a number of other establishments are similarly situated.  Dinner was at an "authentic" Mexican restaurant just across the street.  Initially we were the only Gringos in the place, which we took as a good sign.  The food was good, hot, fast, and cheap, but quantities were way too much.

So, that's it for the trip and the journal.  We anticipate a straight run home on I-10 tomorrow, not looking for anything scenic, just a fast, uneventful ride home.

Until next time....  Alice & Bill