YEAH!!!

carole has her passport, mine shouldn't be far behind. now the real packing begins. we should be good at it by now, just take out half of what we think we will need!!!!

i goofed, sorry nico

nico is a siberian husky. maybe i need new glasses so i can read? no guess i need to retain information better? senior moments? no, not me!!!!!!

ok, now that i have her permission, please check out sarah's journal! www.soupsake.com

click on the postcard for her journal or use the links underneath for flickr and you tube. i love their you tube, carl is playing with nico, their alaskan husky. flickr has lots of pictures of their home, anipals, mushrooms by the 'eleventy squillion', local flooding and historical comparison shots. oh, and food glorious food! she's done a slow cooked pork roast complete with instructional photos and banana bread to die for! can't leave out 'noodle' the cat either!

enjoy!

ready to pack, ready to go!

started out the day finally knowing the date for a memorial service for a great lady. she fought a valiant fight against cancer but she was released to go home a few days ago. she will truly be missed.

ok, we have mentally packed, repacked, and gotten haircuts, and are still patiently waiting for our passports. we will be here sept. 2nd tho, we will go to the memorial.

for those who are curious about where we are going, i will ask my daughter if i can post her flickr address here. we will be getting a big dose of rural english countryside and history! we hope that the mushrooms she found will be active still, as she said, there were eleventy squillion of them! they are tiny individuals but in a mass around the base of a bush it's an awesome sight.

weather there in the high 60's, here hot in the afternoon after the returning marine layer burns off. you'd think it was late spring, early summer. cool at night tho, makes for great sleeping.

a beautiful day in dana point, ca

we took a day off and went down to doheny state beach at dana point, ca. about an hour from here if you don't hit too much traffic through huntington beach, newport beach then LAGUNA BEACH!!!! laguna is a fun town or should say used to be a fun town until i grew up and got tired of dealing with tourists and traffic and pedestrians, all of whom do not know common sense let alone rules of the road. ok, enough dumping!

doheny was wonderful, light breeze, strong waves hitting the shore and we all came back a little pinker than we should be considering we had sun block in the car! good relaxing day tho. had fish and chips for dinner before we headed home. pebble collecting was awesome as always. someday our beach jar will fill up and we'll have to get another one. guess i should take a picture of it. this last trip we collected some sand and shell fragments from crane beach, ma. made a wonderful addition to the jar.

i will add pictures later tonight to flickr, meanwhile if you are at least curious check out sarah's blog site, there is a link to her flickr site. she's posted lots of pictures of their home when they were looking at it and lots since they moved in. also look at the awesome pork roast she's done. we're hoping while we are there.......

damn boat noise!

oh, i guess i should explain. i'm a regular at orca lab's community page and they finally, after a lot of work and good sponsors have sound up and running. busy boat days up there, go away boats, come back orcas and sing!

ok, could be any day now for carole's passport, mine is a week behind hers. sarah and i have been doing the food dislikes/likes discussion. i've offered to pay for another pork roast if she will fix it for us. it roasts for 23 hours! yum!!

to all our friends in places with humidity, you can have it back now. we didn't want it, still don't want it. to esther and the dallas diamonds, YOU GO GIRLS!

we are already beginning a discussion on another road trip, much shorter tho. we'd really like to visit places that have hands on workshops on things like blacksmithing, and the like. this comes from a show we like to watch on rfdtv called heartland highways. we're also seriously talking about the alaska cruise/rail trip for next year. yes, we have been bit by the travel bug!

ok, i'm tired of boats now, sound goes off. gotta do something useful today other than turn the a/c on. summer can go now, it's been nice.......

waiting waiting waiting!

waiting for passports is a challenge. can't book flight until we have them either.

new photos are on flickr now. we bought a new camera, a nikon d-40! wow, what a difference and a lot to learn too.

a few statistics on the road trip; 8200 miles, a little over 1,000 for gas! not bad was it? if you are thinking of traveling by car, don't let the price of gas stop you. for everything we saw and everywhere we went we think it was a bargain!

stay tuned.....

it's not over yet folks!!!!!!!!

well, we've been home almost 3 weeks, we are unpacked and back into our normal routine. let me explain what our normal routine is like. we started talking about a major trip next year, maybe alaska? then my daughter emailed me and i called her back. she and i have had a huge healing that feels so good. well, carole and i are awaiting our expedited passports so we can book our trip to england! passports should be here in 2-3 weeks, then we get tickets and we're out of here again!!!!!!!!
now the planning for yet another type of trip starts. we are so excited, so are sarah and carl. we will see lots, walk a lot, play with nico (husky) and noodle (cat) and probably every hedgehog i can find!
stay tuned friends and family, the adventure continues!