Dan's Retirement Trip: Leg 2 - NW USA - June

This Leg covers NW USA - California, Reno, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and Lake Okoboji, Iowa

Back In California

Leg 2 started back in Long Beach. We'd left our car at my son Tim's and flew home to Arkansas knowing we had to return to California for a wedding (separate blog).

Note: You can double click on the pictures to make them larger.

How much can a child grow in 4 weeks - we found out with our Grand Daughter Lilyanne. When we left, she was 3 months. When we returned to start Leg 2 she was 4 months.

Dinner out with Daddy

Front porch at Tim & Melisa's

We didn't see much of Tim....he was just returning as we were leaving. He'd been on a week+ business trip for CH Robinson to several places in Europe.

We made several stops in California - some to tick off bucket lists, some to revisit old times, some to see crazy wonders of the world....California has a lot to offer.   Great place to visit, but .....

One stop was National Sequoia Forest to see the big trees.   Our GPS took us round and about and finally stopped at a barbwire gate and indicated that we'd need to walk the remainder of the route to the Stagg Tree (4th largest Redwood).   It also told us that the walk was 14 miles.   We back-tracked and stopped at a forest ranger station and he straightened us out and got us to within a 1 mile walk.

I have to say, I have not felt so tiny in the grand scheme of things before. Walking among the redwoods was analogous to my first jump into the ocean for scuba diving - I was awe-stricken.  I'm pretty sure the pictures do not do justice....these are the real kings of the Earth.

The drive was gorgeous - up to over 7000 ft...very thick forests

Had to try one of those looking up pics

These are just a couple of many redwoods...no size records, but you can see size compared to campers

We had to walk a mile or so through some fairly tough trails to actually get to the Stagg Tree.

Going down at steep angle - Big tree was hiding

Sign says it all

Some of the trees are beginning to show wear and tear....very sad.

The tree base is hollowed out from weather and time.

Another stop was San Francisco. We had to run across the Golden Gate bridge...check mark. Interesting facts:

Cost about $35M to build - completed in 1937, today it would be way over $1.5B
Only 11 men died in construction. Huge advancements in safety made 19 more were saved by the net - members of the halfway to hell club
1.7 miles long, 90 feet wide
Each of those towers has over 600,000 rivets
Each of the 2 main cables is made of 27,572 strands of wire. There are 80,000 miles (129,000 km) of wire in the two 36 inch cables

Da Golden Gate

Lesa hoofing across

Me starting a run across Golden Gate

After the run, we made our way to our hotel, a Marriott at the Wharf (nice place). Prior to dinner, we had to walk to Buena Vista for their specialty Irish coffee. A block off the wharf area, right by cable car station...and close to the Ghirardelli factory. The Irish coffee is famous for cold San Francisco nights.

Buena Vista Irish Coffee

Eventually made it to the wharf. Another selfie.

Always a lot of folks there

Lesa's favorite food - going back to the days her Mother took her there - was to eat an hors-d'oeuvre from the stands.

She had crab, I had shrimp

The next morning, we did more walking to the Embarcadero - Ferry Building (kind of like a craft fair / farmer market. Bought the kids a souvenir and then left the city via the Bay Bridge that collapsed during the televised 1989 World Series. San Francisco should be on everyone's bucket list - to me, the best large city for a weekend vacation.

Schafer Wedding and Pismo Beach
We bounced around quite a lot in California between getting the car, the wedding, Pismo Beach, and a couple of other city stops.

There are not many things as good as a Portuguese wedding...unless:

The Portuguese Bride's Father owns a winery
The wedding is followed by a Portuguese family reunion at the Portuguese Riviera - Pismo Beach, California

That's is what our next few days included.

On a sad note, one of our good Potlucker friends in Arkansas lost her father who lived near our destination. It was nice to see Randy and Jeanette Gomez, but wrong condition. It was great meeting Randy's Dad, Sister and Uncles/Aunts....it explains a lot about Randy!

The night before the wedding was spent with Lesa's cousin Gladys at her house in Fresno. Lesa and Gladys laughed so hard at old stories...I really thought they'd pee their pants....not even that funny. Gladys fixed us a world class dinner (home made tacos - didn't know you could do that) and then a very special breakfast.

See...they are laughing

Home made tacos

Fresh Apricots & Cream on waffles, Ham, Egg Benedict

If you want to talk excitement, we also went to the local cemetery where Lesa grandparents are and took pictures of their picture on the tombstone.

This is Gladys prepaid grave...I am standing on her with my shadow.

Off to the wedding which was at the gateway to Yosemite...the reception was 30 minutes away, winding into Yosemite a ways. Luckily we had a bus. I have many family wedding pictures....will only place a few...needless to say, food and drink was above and beyond.

The Brides parents Steve and Cindy (Lesa Cousin)....they were dressed down for this Pic

Lesa Sister and Cousins - L-R Celeste (Cousin Leg 1 visit), Teresa (Sister Leg 1 visit), Lesa, Gloria (Cousin Leg 3 visit), Gladys

Lesa and I with her God-Father, John, and his wife Dorie

Barry (Teresa husband) and bride and groom

Johnny (Lesa cousin) and wife Audrey

Brian (Lesa cousin) and wife Shea

After the wedding, we drove about 4 hours to Pismo Beach, CA which is 1.5 hour North of LA area. We used VRBO.com to rent a home for 10. Nice web site for finding folks that rent out their houses to vacationers....pretty international.

We were right on the beach at Pismo

All the windows made for great ocean breeze and sounds in the evening

Various folks came and went, but over the 3 days, we had Gladys, Lesa and I, Cindy and Steve (needed rest after the wedding), Jim and Celeste. All of these have been pictured elsewhere in the blog....even in this blog post. Also joining us was Jermey and Jennifer Menezes and their 3 kids - Colten, Gracelynn and Georgiana. Here is a pre-Colten picture. Jennifer is daughter of Jim and Celeste.

The general course of events each day was playing lots of cards, beach walks, cooking and drinking.

Celeste, Lesa Jennifer, Cindy

One day Jeremy, Barry, Jim and I hiked about 3 miles down the beach to the pier. Instead of just reversing our track, we took a route back through the dunes. The dunes rose anywhere from 10 to 100 feet. Each step would entail your foot sinking 6 inches in the sand and then pushing back a foot when you stepped forward. We walked 4.5 miles going back...grueling. Lesa and Gladys did the hike to the pier one day and then hitch-hiked back with a guy in a pickup....were going to jump in the pickup bed, but they couldn't jump up high enough to get in....the guy finally told them to get in the cab.

Jim guided us with his GPS

Barry celebrating making it

After Pismo, and before exiting California, we drove to Livingston and stayed with Jeremy and Jennifer. Jim and Celeste were also there. Again, Jennifer is their daughter. Played a little pool and drank bourbon in Jeremy's man-shed. Again, had another Piedro tournament (card game).

Reno

Finally out of California, we headed for Reno.

Reno has a slogan. It is one of the 2 largest cities in Nevada...the rest of the state is sand.

We arrived at the home of Ron and Carolyn Jensen who live in the mountains around Reno. From downtown, their house is up a crazy mountain winding climb of 7 miles. Ron and Carolyn are the kind of friends you see every 2-3 years, but you pick up right where you left off...and of course we all age exactly the same pace so that no one notices. A couple years ago, we visited them in Costa Rico where they lived. Prior to that, they did a US tour and stopped in Arkansas. Way back in the mid-late 70's Ron and I played on a softball team together and both worked at USAA....that's how long we've know each other and kept up - true colors!!

Ron, Carolyn, and Lesa

You'll notice Ron has a slots tournament T-Shirt. I have never seen slot machine luck like he and Carolyn have. We would all put in $20 of credits, and they'd win $300 or $100 and I'd be watching them play in about 10 minutes since my $20 was gone. One video slot machine we played was Sinbad. Was 1/2 slot machine and then if you hit the right pictures you had to do video game activities like fight the guy in the picture below.....really kind fun - more fun than just hitting a button and saying "here take my $1 for this spin".

Revenge was sweet on the golf course though....took Ron a bit to get started with a 59 on the front 9...after a few beers, he was 48 on the back 9. Us? oh, Lesa beat him by 1 and I beat him by about 18. Somehow he won more money than I did though##?//!@

Part of living in Reno and frequenting the same casinos, you get points which turn into free limo's, free dinners, Casino Executive Clubs, etc.....we were treated like kings wherever we went. Very cool.

One of the casinos we visited was having one of those "dog jumping contests". We initially watched the rookie dogs jump from a platform and runway into a pool. They were going 15-17 feet. You'll notice the second dog has a superman kerchief.

After the rookies there was the elite professional dog round. The current world champion was there and went 27.5 feet - these dogs are incredible.

Ron and I had to take a picture with Smokey the Bear. Notice the resemblance - Ron and Smokey I mean?

Notice the resemblance - Ron and Smokey I mean?

Does this help

After arriving on Friday, Ron suggested that we may want to do Yoga the next morning. I have never done any Yoga, but figured if Ron can do it I can do it. I found out that there are different kinds of yoga and this one was the 90 minute version in a hot room. A lot of very fit very pretty females came into the class....I'm thinking - this isn't going to be bad at all - I see why Ron likes this. Five minutes into the class, I thought no more about the girls as I was trying to not puke and to stay alive. This was Bikram yoga - like I said in a heated room, 90 minutes, 26 poses (I'd call them torture positions). We should forget about doing water boarding in Guantanimo and just force the prisoners to do Bikram Yoga....they'd talk! I am pleased to report that I stuck it out for the entire 90 minutes....clearly impacted my golf that afternoon though.

On Sunday, Father's Day, we skipped yoga class and we went to church in Virginia City. Virginia City for most part looks like where you'd find Sherriff Coffey and the Cartwrights (Bonanza).

There were a lot of cowboys all duded up, miners with there mules and pretty saloon girls on the street. One reason we went to Virginia City was to try to see the wild mustangs that just roam about. Never saw them. However, when Lesa and I left Ron and Carolyn's, we took that same general route and the wild horses were everywhere. These are wild horses that just roam the desert - no owner.

At the end of each day and each morning we retired back to the Jensen's house. Carolyn has the place just absolutely covered with flowers and plants. It is so peaceful - kind of like a haven away from the rest of the world (except for the ex-military neighbor that stares at Carolyn).

As we drove from Reno, we left Ron and Carolyn behind - preparing their visit to Portugal. We left them behind but added more memories into the Friend bank. .....On to Utah

Utah
We had an 8 hour drive from Reno to Salt Lake City....we left Reno at about 9AM and got to Great Salt Lake about 4:30.

A little ways into Utah, we ascended a hill and as we came over we were blinded by the white horizon....and we were at sea level in 90 degree temp, so it wasn't snow. If you read the sign, or you may already know, this is where most of the land speed records are set - in the 60's jet cars set records over 500 mph. The flats are 44,000 acres - huge. Back in 1800's the Donner party, traveling West, lost a lot of animals and food supplies - hence the later disaster when they reached the Sierra Nevada mountains and had to snack on each other.

Gives a bit of the history of Bonneville Flats

Blinding white

Makes most pictures (Lesa) look like a shadow.

Our blended right in, but did not wish to set a speed record

We used a local restroom to change into our running clothes and then chased down a check mark on the run list for Great Salt Lake.

The lake is 1700 sq miles - largest lake not attached to the Great Lakes. Way higher salinity than the ocean. The lake has no outlets besides evaporation. For something this size, I was surprised that average depth is 17 feet...max depth is only 33 feet.

From a very high place this is Great Salt lake

Anyway, we had to do the 4 mile run along this historic landmark. It sucked so bad for multiple reasons:

There were dead ducks everywhere - Ranger told me it was from a flock that came in with West Nile desease...Lesa made me bag my shoes and put them in the trunk
The lake harbors something called brine shrimp. The lake fluctuates from 1000 sq miles to 3000 sq miles. Needless to say, dead shrimp stink
There is a salty crust on the beach and in some cases the salty crust was not covering the beach, but was covering soggy beach...felt like quick sand

Me running along the lake - pretty impressive stride, huh?

We stayed the night in Salt Lake City so Lesa could see the city and we could visit the headquarters for the Mormon church. First of all, the city is very clean and gives you a perspective of new. A lot of building going on in the downtown area.

The Mormon campus is really pretty - lots of gardens. When you see the auditorium where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings, tour guides give you demonstrations of the acoustical power of the auditorium. No microphones are needed and from the rear of the very large room (holds 7000+ people) you can hear a pin drop on a table at the front alter.....pretty crazy!

Temple

Lots of Gardens

And parks - Lesa

The world famous organ for the Tabernacle Choir

From Salt lake City, we drove up the mountain to Park City - home of several ski areas, annual Film Festival, 2002 Winter Olympic Village, golf courses, and a very nice little village. Toby, Tim and I took a ski trip to Park City back around 1989. The city changed dramatically since they hosted an Olympics in 2002.

Lesa and I stayed at the Marriott Mountainside Resort - pretty swanky place.

You can see some ski slopes in background

We visited the 13 year old Olympic Park. Have you ever wondered how the acrobatic ski athletes get the guts to do the first flip or the 720 degree flips, etc.....The Olympic park has a giant practice area that the athletes can use to practice their jumps but land in water. Way softer than snow or trees.

The original Long jump

Pick your track depending on how steep and long you want to go. Apparently the track is just like skiing on snow.

Original bobsled and luge tracks are still there. There are many rides you can take to go down a track or down a zip line this whole area is a playground for families

Another shot of practice area...you can see some skiers coming down.

Of course we had to do some mountain golf. The Marriott concierge said we had to golf at the Wasatch Mountain State Park course. Holy cow it was pretty. Had some pesky flies though.

For breakfast one day and dinner one day, we walked about a mile - significant elevation change - to downtown Park City - 90% restaurants, bars and shops. Do not attempt the walk in flip flops like Lesa did. Also, we ate at another Drive-in, Diner and Dives in Park City - Sammy's Bistro.

Had TX BBQ Shrimp and Sammy's Wings

I spent a couple hours fly fishing on the Provo River. Caught 1 rainbow - had much more luck with a guide (next blog) in Montana. The Provo River was running hard - they'd gotten a lot of rain. The one trout I did get was on a sow bug fly my brother-in-law Barry gave me.

The rivers are so clean and just flat pretty around there.

All in all, Utah is a very pretty state - Built for outdoors people. I'd go back to Utah - especially the Park City area. It may be on the list for a family vacation...many outdoor activities for the Grand kids.

Big Sky Montana and Yellowstone
We didn't have to go too far to get to our next destination from Utah - the Yellowstone area about 5.5 hours - Very pretty drive.

We stayed about an hour out of Yellowstone to the North and West in Big Sky Montana in the Mountain Village. We actually stayed 3 nights in the Lodge at Big Sky Resort - nothing special but okay for $150/night. We had taken Tobe and Tim skiing in Big Sky quite a few years back....nice place to ski. There is a Big Sky Meadow Village and a Big Sky Mountain Village. As advice, I'd stay in Meadow in summer and Mountain in the winter.

Dude!

Dudette

Our general agenda was:

Yellowstone

Fly Fish with a guide

Golf

We did get it all accomplished.

Yellowstone
The Yellowstone Park Guide says it will take 4-7 hours to drive the park and take the key sidebar roads to cool stuff. We spent 8 hours in the park.

At his point we began looking for Yogi and Boo Boo.

As you see from the above map, there are 5 entrances into Yellowstone, aptly named North, South, East, West and Northeast. We came in the West entrance. There is a figure 8 where the bottom half represents 90-120 miles -depending on your detours. The yellow dots are notes for the big "Got to See" places. Only 2 are way at the top. We spent 8 hours on the bottom 100 mile loop.

Yellowstone spans about 3500 acres and was the first National Park in the world, so designated by President Grant in 1870's.   It is said that Yellowstone Park is pretty much a volcano that if it blows would create enough chaos to wipe out a good chunk of the US.   As you go through the park and see all the geysers, bubbling pots and volcanic remnants....you feel a bit of angst.

One can not describe Yellowstone with words or even pictures. Every couple miles there was a turn out to see the river or a bubbling pot or a geyser...and those were just the little things.   Once in awhile you'd look ahead 1/2 mile and realize there appears to be a traffic jam ahead.   After a couple of those, you understand it's time to get excited - animals have been spotted!!

We could have taken 10,000 pictures...we took over 100, but I'll just include a few, with some captions.   Before you die, everyone should have Yellowstone on a bucket list.   Apparently all the Japanese people do.     Like the Sequoia National Forest and big trees - I was humbled and you almost have a feeling of reverence - you are in God's church.

Yellowstone River

Eveidence of fires (some intentional) that are very healthy for the forests

You could see trout in this river - requires a National Park License to fish

At times you'd come across areas of bubbling mud cauldrons or there'd be 10 geysers coming up or absolutely crystal clear water holes.

You can see our car parked in background....lots of turnouts that allowed you go explore an item. Many times you had to walk 1/4 to 1 mile to see.

This bubbling geyser was the size of a football field. Apparently buffalo/elk get too close and fall through the mineral crust...you end up with boiled buffalo or elk.

Many of these boiling pots drain very hot water into the river which flows nearby. We followed the trench of one pot and put our hand in the water....still too hot to leave your hand there and we were 100 feet from the pot.

See all the geysers - Yellowstone is just letting off steam and ready to explode.

This stuff is called the paint pots...looks like paint - only it's boiling. I have separate videos.

Depending on the bacteria and time of year ......

........you get really cool colors

Probably 20-30 feet deep - crystal clear!

....and then thre is Old Faithful - her (pretty sure it's not a him the way she blows off steam). She goes off every 60-125 minutes. When we were there, she was blowing every 90. Don't worry about timing your stop, there are other geysers going off in addition to restaurants, museums, miles of paths, etc. However, we did pull up 10 minutes prior to her sexual explosion. Seriously...it's kind of like that. There were likely 1000 tourists watching...a very large watch area.

Yes, another run around Old Faithful

Teasing us

Going over 100 feet in the air

Lots of really pretty vegetation

Buffaloes were everywhere

This was a 20 minute traffic stop

If you double click this pic you'll see 2 very large Elk under the tree. I got kind of close and the Ranger told me to get back.

We also did several hikes to see the sites - the Fishing Bridge in the past was wall to wall fisherman. Now the bridge is off limts to fishing as it is a spawning area for trout....you should see the eagles sitting around and the trout in the water - both huge.

Old picture of all the people that used to fish on the bridge

Then we also hiked over to the waterfall. I should say we hiked down. First there was probably a 200 foot drop in paths. Then a sign says there are 350 steps (stair steps) to get to the bottom. Easy going down....there are a lot of people that went down that are still there as they couldn't get back up. They live there now. The walk was well worth it though. Again, I have a great video of the waterfall.

We first went to the little waterfall....nice walk, pretty waterfall

Then we hiked down the significant descent to the big waterfall....really cool. Almost always in the afternoon, a rainbow crosses the waterfall. Doesn't get much prettier.

My only real disappointment with Yellowstone was not seeing a bear. Saw lots of animals, bald eagles, huge trout...but no bear. May have to go back. I was not worried about being attacked - all I had to do was outrun Lesa.

It may be worth a camping trip there, but I'd want to take horse deep into the park and camp....another day.

Trout Fishing on the Gallatin River

There s a fly fishing shop every 2 blocks around Big Sky. I arranged a guide for Saturday morning and was ecstatic with the results. Lesa did not want to fish, so she took pictures for an hour and then went and shopped. The Gallatin River has 4,000 fish per mile according to my Guide....made for trout fishing!

My Guide was a guy named Spencer. All morning, I couldn't help but think of my son Tim's friend Michael H.

Over the course of 4 hours, I caught 30-40 trout...here are just a couple of pictures.

The first

My largest - a 17 inch brown.

The sunsets in Yellowstone are pretty phenomenal!!

Tomorrow morning...off through Wyoming to Colorado.

Wyoming and Colorado
Anticipating a really boring drive, we came across several interesting things in rest of Wyoming and Northern Colorado.

We had a 10 hour drive, so we broke it into two pieces. Contrary to what the above map shows, we left Big Sky and went North and then East of Yellowstone through Bozeman, Casper and Cheyenne.

After passing through Sheridan, WY, we quite accidentally came upon Little Big Horn where Custer's Last Stand took place. This area memorializes the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry and the Sioux and Cheyenne in one of the Indian's last armed efforts to preserve their way of life. On June 25-26, 1876, 263 soldiers, including Lt. Col. George A. Custer and attached personnel of the U.S. Army, died fighting several thousand Lakota, and Cheyenne warriors. If I recall, 100 Indians died.

Key Indian leaders in the battle were Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Gen George Custer led the 7th Cavalry.

Custer

Sitting Bull

Crazy Horse

Indian names are always interesting. Like the war memorials that lists fallen soldiers from the great wars, there is a wall that list the fallen Indians from this battle. Here is a picture I took of part of the wall.

The day we were at the battle site (a couple days from the anniversary of the battle), there were 1000 Indians re-enacting the battle a couple miles away. They can't actually re-enact it on the National Park grounds. Would've been awkward had it gotten out of hand.

The National Park is an excellent 2-3 hour stop - museum and a lot of artifacts.

Indian Wall of Honor

There are tombstones where the various soldiers and Indians fell. This one shows where Custer went down. Kind of eerie when you look at a battleground and see where specific people were killed

The Rangers do an excellent job of explaining the situation leading up to the battle

Like the soldier tombstones, the Indians have tombstones where they fell - red vs white tombstones.

That evening, we stayed in Casper Wyoming before proceeding onto Colorado. As you go across the US, you always find restaurants or hotels that have these kinds of gimmicks to attract people like us!

Not a trout

Ducked just in time

Some of the animals were very friendly

In Colorado, we stopped for lunch and a 2 hour stretch in Boulder. Boulder has about 6-7 blocks of Pearl Street blocked off as the Pearl Street Mall.

Pearl Street Mall in Boulder

That night we stayed in Denver. Denver also has a blocked off mall called 16th St Mall. Boulder had theirs first and Denver copied.

16th Street Mall in Denver

Being in Colorado where weed is legal, we had to stop in the Dispensary - there was only one on the entire mall. It has an armed guard and lots of retail help - they all had glassy eyes. One can buy legal marijuana in many forms - to smoke, dark chocolate, cookies, candies. The help gives you a lot of guidance as to which kind puts you in which mood.

Out of staters can buy up to 7 grams...think of it at $20/gram

If you don't smoke, you can have candy

The store is very controlled and very clean

We tried the watermelon candy and dark chocolate - can't say it did much.

When I worked at TXU in Dallas, I became a co-worker and friend of Tim Davis - at the time he was President of Servicemaster Energy Management. Tim and his wife Kathy live on a ranch in Castle Rock - an hour South of Denver. I am waiting for Tim to text me a selfie of the two of them - I forgot to take their picture. For now, this will be a placeholder.

Tim and Kathy are really active with horses. They've given up polo, but during the season, both ride in fox hunts every weekend. It sounds like pure chaos when the dogs spot a fox (coyotes in this case) and a bunch of crazy people take off across 10,000 acres chasing the dogs on horses running as fast as they can.

Two horses (Bart and Jackson) and a German Hunting Poodle (Luna) and a bird that really does talk keep them pretty busy.

Kathy with Bart

We were exercising Luna in the lake

We took a 3-4 hour walk on their property....very hilly, very brushy, very pretty.    We all had to throw away our socks at the end - lots of little stickers.

We drove into Castle Rock for dinner on Wednesday night...Tim grilled ribs on Tuesday.   Quite a coincidence, but we ran into Jack Baker, another guy I worked with in the Denver area, in the restaurant that we used.   Jack had surgery recently and they lost him on the operating table (Anesthesia problem) for awhile, but he came back.   He said he felt his body begin to rise, but he could hear people (his wife for one) yelling to hang on.

We had a great visit and a lot fun playing with Luna, the dog.   Somehow she stole my sunglasses and put them in her bed.   Kathy is now sending them and Luna sent me an apology. This is what Luna looks like out of the water - a great dog.

Lake Okoboji , Iowa
Our longest drive was from Denver area all the way across Nebraska up to Okoboji Iowa to be with family on the 4th.

Both my Brother Jim and Sister Jane have property at Okoboji. Anyone from Iowa has been to Okoboji. It is the playground of Iowa. 4-5 lakes are interconnected making for great boating, there are golf courses, and Arnold's Park (an amusement park) is right there. Most of the restaurants and bars are accessible from the lake via boat or land via car. Just a really relaxing place.

Over the long 4th of July weekend, we boated half a dozen times, including watching the fireworks from the lake. Okoboji did an incredible job of putting the fireworks to music, like Lee Greewood, Neil Diamond, Alan Jackson, etc...

Jim, myself, Brother in law Jay and Nephew Chance got in a round of golf. Both matches were really competitive and went down to the wire. Me (86) versus Jim(87) and Chance (120) versus Jay(122).

Here are some family and other pictures:

Lesa and Deb (Jim's wife) drinking/shopping

Deb and Jim at dinner

Lesa nd me at dinner with Deb and Jim

We had dinner right before the evening outdoor concert with a famous Iowa band called The Rumbles. I would go see them when I was in high school in the late 60's....needless to say, some of the cast has changed, but they are still good.

Lesa/Deb at the concert

After golf, Jim and Deb took us out to an area on the lake where all the young people anchor or daisy chain their boats together. Probably 1000 boats - very wild scene and scenery!

We had picnic and 4th of July festivities with Jane's family.