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EARL and GAIL’s BIG MOVE ACROSS THE COUNTRY…...

Well, we’re safely in Bend after a five-day trip across the United States of America. I want to do it slowly one of these days, but even driving an average of 10 hours/day allowed us to sense the wonderfulness of our country—the size, the variety, the wealth, the quality of the highway system, and the fabulous American people…...get out and experience the United States that we share, and I think you’ll agree that we live in the best country in the world!

Here’s what we saw as we approached Bend…...
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Yes, we are really happy (no, ecstatic) to be back in the West!

Let’s recap the last week…..remember, this was our house in Apison, TN - very near to Chattanooga.
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We agreed to sell our home while we were in England, on the Montgomery Branch of the Llangollen Canal. After we got home, we packed our worldly goods up for about a month, and the van came on Tuesday, September 29.
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.....and our stuff filled the entire van! Here’s what it looked like at 11:00 p.m., with ALL my garage cabinets and shelves, ALL my extra wood…in fact, everything in our house….
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Next morning, we got up and spent the day cleaning the house and garage, and then we headed for our real estate agent’s office, where we gathered with the bankers, the title people, the real estate agents, and the buyer, and signed all the papers….and then got our check. You can bet that we thanked the good Lord for the blessing of receiving 98% of our asking price in this market.
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We deposited the check in our bank account that very night, and on Thursday we headed west in a tightly-packed Honda Civic. We had left earlier than expected (woke up and couldn’t sleep), so we stopped in St. Louis
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to go to the top of the St. Louis Arch. Wow! pretty much sums up our reaction - just WOW! CHECK IT OUT on the Web, and go see it for yourself.
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We pushed on to Kansas City, where we stayed with Jan (my cousin) and TJ Wesselmann - we’ll miss seeing them, which we did often in the last years by stopping off to see them on our way to Lincoln to visit Sophia. The next morning, we were off to Colorado, where we planned to spend Sabbath with Calvin and Amy Grimes Gane - Amy is a former student and good friend that we don’t see very much. We had a lovely time getting to know Calvin better, and talking and laughing, eating good food, and checking out all our old haunts - Gail and I lived in Fort Collins while in graduate school at CSU in the ‘70s. Our house, purchased in 1971 for $11,500.00 and sold in 1976 for $18,900.00 is now on the market for $344,500.00.
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The house when we owned it consisted of solely the first story, and it had a front porch, now made into part of the large front bedroom. Still, the question that kept popping into our heads was “What determines these prices!?”, and another - “How can a graduate student afford to live in Fort Collins, these days?” Hmmmmmmm…..

Well, leaving the old home place, we headed south and west, into Rocky Mountain National Park, where we’d spent so many wonderful times when we were a lot younger. We drove up Fall River Road, first constructed by convict labor, and got out at the Alpine visitor Center - about 11,000 feet elevation….you can really feel it.
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After warming up a bit inside, we moved out to the deck - where Amy shot a memory for us
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As we drove along Trail Ridge Road back toward the valley, I remembered a hike that Vic and I took in 1976, while preparing to move back to California for Thor’s birth—we hiked in to the area shown in the photo in the afternoon - it was six miles or so - and camped the night, planning to move on for fishing in the large lake just over the ridge to the left. Next morning, we woke to a bit of snow and a lot of threatening clouds, and we packed up and hiked right back out…disappointed, but alive. At least one hiker was killed by the cold storm that descended the night after we left…...
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Anyhow, we descended to lower (and warmer) elevations to visit the cabin that Amy’s grandfather built in the late ‘40s, just outside the boundaries of the Park. Later, the area was incorporated, but the earlier owners have mostly retained their property - they’re called “inholders”. It was the elk’s courting and mating season, and we could hear the “bugling” as we ate our picnic just outside
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Then, on the other side of the cabin, we saw movement
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Beautiful creatures…and we saw LOTS of them. One thing that struck Gail and me was the increase in the number of tourists and their cars in the Park - we used to have it largely to ourselves, but it was REALLY crowded this time. Maybe it’s less when the elk aren’t being active…...

Sunday morning, we got away fairly early and headed for Boise, Idaho—this was the longest and “worst” day of the trip. We had an hour early on where we drove in fairly heavy fog - the bottom of a cloud, I suspect because as we dropped in elevation, we came out into clearer air….it was intense driving for a period. Later in the day, we got to the edge of a giant story covering much of Wyoming and Montana - and ended up driving with snow pelting the car, and a slushy mess in the traffic lanes. We slowed to 60-65 mph for another hour - and the concentration needed even then was extreme. Not comfortable driving. But, these were the worst two hours of the trip - otherwise, we just cruised at 80 most of the time, and largely in sunshine. The bottom of Wyoming and the top of Utah resemble each other a lot, and that means a lot of long straight roads
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This was also the only time we drove in the dark on this trip—and it rained all the way up to Boise, where we arrived around 9:00 p.m. Passing large trucks is a misery when there is water on the road - it’s a mini-“snow-storm” every time, because you really can’t see very well in the cascade of spray they throw up. Ugly. We spent the night in a Comfort Inn - needs a bit of renovation - and had wireless Internet and a wonderful free breakfast Monday morning - waffles, biscuits and gravy, hot and cold cereal, hard-boiled eggs, apples, oranges and bananas, juice and hot drinks, toast, bagels, etc. etc. GREAT start to the day.

Then it was off into Oregon - and the far eastern edge of the state is really beautiful
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Farther into the state—in the “middle-east” - we got more of what we were expecting, which is “basin and range” and a more deserty environment
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You have to admit that the bleakness of the landscape is moderated a bit by the magnificence of the mountains in the distance.
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It only got better as we got closer to Bend, too…...as you saw in the very first photo of Mount Bachelor. And then, we arrived - 20636 Songbird Lane
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We dropped by Laura and Leslie’s house, and Sophia was smiling and dancing because Grandmama and Papa aren’t visiting anymore—we LIVE HERE!!