Doug & Pat

I haven’t written on this blog in a long time. Facebook has been easier to just a make comment or two. But I wanted to comment on a small town in NE Texas, Jefferson. It is quite a historic town. One of the unbelieveable things is that it used to be a port. Now if you look on the map for Jefferson (it’s north of Marshall on Hy 59), you will see that it is nowhere close to the “sea.” There was some back-up somewhere on the Red River which allowed Jefferson and Shreveport, Louisiana to both be ports. The other thing about Jefferson is that it is the Bed-and-Breakfast capital of Texas. There are so many beautiful restored houses that are now Beds-and-Breakfast. We stayed in one called the Azalea House. It only had 3 “visitor” bedrooms, so it was very private. Since we went there at the end of the year, it was still decorated for Christmas. We loved it so much. The breakfast we were served in our room was enough for 4 with everything so delicious! There was a little ramkin with hash browns on the bottom, breakfast gravy poured over that, and cheese melted on top. Doug liked it so much that he made that for his breakfast at home several times. We had stuffed French Toast one morning, and there was always fruit. We especially like being served in our room.

We took a ride on the Christmas train there, only it was called the New Year’s Train since Christmas was over. But the decorations were still out, and it was delightful. A park there had about 40 trees lit up. We enjoyed driving through this town seeing the houses and the decorations. I would recommend this town for anyone to visit.

This morning we arrived in St. John, New Brunswick. We tried one of the main dining rooms for breakfast this time.  Doug had Eggs Benedict, which he liked, but I tried pancakes with blueberry syrup. When they came out, the waiter brought ordinary syrup, poured it and took it away. The pancakes were cold! I ate a few bites but when one waiter came by and asked how we were doing, I told him that my pancakes were cold. He took the plate back and brought 2 fresh warm pancakes (to replace 4 that had been on my plate). This time I told him that I was supposed to have blueberry syrup. The pancakes were not nearly as good as IHOP. Oh well, I won’t order them again.

When we went ashore for our tour, we were given welcome gifts– a rose and a pin. We were to visit the Reversing River Rapids, the village of St. Martins, and the Bay of Fundy caves. The Reversing River is a strange thing. The St. John River flows through the province of New Brunswick and empties in the Bay of Fund. Twice a day high tide from the bay forces the river to flow backwards, inland instead of out to sea.  We stopped there in the morning at low tide and saw a normal river flowing out as it should. When we came back in the afternoon, the level had gone up, and it was flowing the other way. Fascinating.

The river running as a river should.

At the village of St. Martins we were served authentic New Brunswick seafood chowder with lobster and scallops and given time to explore the caves made by the incredible high tides of the Bay of Fundy. The tour guide said that the tide here was as high as 14 feet.  Further inland the bay has tides as high as 53 feet! The beach was made up of rocks instead of sand, smooth rocks worn by the tide.  She said that we were walking on the bottom of the bay. There were rocks of many colors. (I am bringing some home, which does not please my husband.) I managed to walk across all those rocks to the caves. One was pretty deep. Rocks were embedded in the cliff. It was a very strange sight.

There were 2 covered bridges in St. Martins, the only place you can take of picture of 2 bridges at once. We tried to find a moose in the woods on the way back to St. John, but were not lucky enough to see one. Our guide said there were a lot of them here.

We had a great meal this evening and now are preparing to read in bed.  Maybe we can sleep late in the morning. We are now on Atlantic time, 2 hours ahead of Texas.

By the way, the golf clinic was a full hour, and the pro gave a lot of useful tips, that I might forget before I touch a golf club. He said there was a place upstairs when we could borrow clubs and practice.

The river running backwards!

Our stateroom is very small; we didn’t opt for a window or balcony room. The bathroom, however, is very roomy compared with our past cruises. There are a lot of Texans on board and several families from Elkins Lake that we have met. The ship is much smaller that the Voyager, but still takes a lot of walking. So far, we are pleased with the ship.

Our first excursion was this morning at Bar Harbor, Maine. This little town is on a island (one of many islands here).  It is known for whales and lobster and famous people. On our bus tour to Acadia National Park, the lady told us about all the wealthy people of the past who built places here—Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan, and other famous wealthy people whose names I have already forgotten. (She also pointed out the hotel where the Obamas stayed recently.) This is truly the summer “playground of the rich.” Their “cottages” might have 30 rooms or more. She also pointed out the home of Dick Wolf, the producer of all those “Law & Order” TV shows.

Acadia National Park is very green and full of pink granite. We stopped at this place called Thunder Hole where the tide comes in so strong it sound likes thunder. It was low tide when we stopped, however. It was foggy and misty so we didn’t get the fine view that we might have had at the summit of Cadillac Mountain. Yes, it used to be owned by the French man that the Cadillac car is named from.

After our tour we had a lobster bake. I kinda expected it to be held outside under some kind of shelter, but we were led into the Bar Harbor club. We ate in a beautiful round dining room.  It reminded me of a crawfish boil, but fancy. The lobsters do look like giant crawfish. We were served boiled potatoes and corn on the cob, cole slaw, mussels and a blueberry tart. Maine is famous for blueberries, also—and maple syrup which we didn’t buy.  Anyway we were given instructions on cracking the lobster. I actually did it myself. They are soft shell this time of year, so that made it easier. Everything was so good, except the mussels. I didn’t like those very well.

After the meal we walked around the square filled with shops and tourist traps. I found a place mat. We have to be careful not to buy big stuff. We don’t have room in our suitcase. Oh, for you dog lovers, there was a store called Bark Harbor

At 5:00 we are going to take a free golf lesson on the ship. Interesting. Doug says they probably want to see us stuff, but we are able to say no.

Thunder Hole:

We had never been to Devil’s Tower, as many times as we have been to Wyoming. On our journey through Yellowstone, we had seen a lot of motorcycles, and we continued to see motorcycles on this road, too. I told Doug that I was getting tired of all these motocycles. Around the next turn, I saw that the viewing area for our first good picture of Devil’s Tower held so many motorcycles it was difficult to find a place to park. Our first picture of Devil’s Tower has motocycles in it. Boy! When we got to the entrance, there were hundreds and hundreds of motocycles parked at the store and restaurant there. Come to find out, this was an event connected with the Sturgis meeting of motocycles.  When we got to the Visitor”s center close to the foot of Devil’s Tower, there were hundreds more. We in cars had to go off to another parking area. People were selling water and had set up a misting station. (It is hotter there than in Laramie–lower elevation.) The Tower itself is amazing. There were a few climbers on the face of the Tower; I wouldn’t want to try that. In fact we didn’t want to walk the trail to the top.

When we got back to Mandy’s, our son-in-law, Mark, said that his parents had climbed the Tower. His mother was the first or second woman to do that. They were in a climbing club in college; that’s where they met. Cool!

We leave here tomorrow to go back to Huntsville. We are not looking forward to getting back to the heat.

I did not get to write this on the actual day 3, because we had to change places to stay. This place was a cabin belonging to the huge Lake Hotel. Not only did it not have internet connections, we didn”t have cell phone service. The next day, yesterday, we were traveling and I didn”t feel like doing the blob.

But anyway, on day 3, we got to look at the marvelous Yellowstone Falls and Canyon. The Canyon has the yellow-colored walls that I suppose gave the park its name.  We got to stand on the brink of the Upper Falls and gaze down into the river that catches all this water. The Yellowstone River flows out of the Yellowstone Lake, the largest mountain lake in North America, and flows north to the Missouri River in Montana. The Lower Falls is the tallest and is the one most often seen in pictures. As we drove through the park, we kept wondering about the first people to discover this place. I did read about a white man who was disbeliieved when he wrote about it. When we left the Canyon area, we drove through a very large thunderstorm. Fortunately it had stopped by the time we had to unload our bags into the cabin. We had to turn on the heater the next morning, but it was a beautiful day to finish our journey. We headed to the NE entrance (our cabin was more in the south) since we intended to drive toward Devil”s Tower in NE Wyoming. There were a few bison in the Hayden Valley, but we were early enough to not have a lot of cars stopped. However, we did have to stop for bison in the road. One thing we noticed about buffalo–a bull and cow will almost always be wandering around together. The male makes growls almost all the time. I took a video to record his growls. The signs say, don”t approach the bison, but people are gored every year from getting too close.

The journey to the NE entrance was scenic with some more bison in the Lamar Valley. We didn’t see any more elk and never saw a bear. There was one section called the Grizzly Area, but even with our binnoculars we didn’t see anything. They don’t let prople into this area. Right outside the entrance, was a quaint town called Silver Gate. Everything in the town was a log structure. It had a lot of hotels and outfitters for various things. However, we noticed that gas was $3,30 a gallon! That was higher than in Yellowstone. (captive audience)

On our way to our next stop, which was Buffalo, Wy, we went on another scenic road. There is such beauty in Wyoming (as well as some desolation here in various places, such as Sinclair, Wy).

Here is a picture of our little cabin:

It was a good day yesterday.  We saw many getsers and steaming places north of Old Faithful.  One of our favorite places is where hot water rushes at 4000 gallons a minute into the Firehole River.  Doug was able to touch the river water, but surprisingly, it wasn”t hot, just not freezing cold.  Further along the river away from the steam places, I touched the river and it seemed freezing cold.  There is a swimming hole in this river, but the people comiing out said the water was pretty cold. Each day we have stopped at a nice picnic ground for lunch.  At Mammoth Hot Springs in the north, there were about 20 or so elk just resting in the grass beside the buildings.  See below:

Going south from there, we went through Hayden Valley where the buffalo roam.  There were hundreds.  It took us an hour to go a few miles because so many cars stopped to take pictures.  We took pictures, too, but we didn”t have to block traffic because so many people ahead of us were stopped.  We have to go back that way this morning to go see the Yellostone Falls.  Maybe since it is Monday, some of those people will be gone.  Also it is rainy; that may stop some people.  But if you are here, I guess you take advantage of the days that you have.

Here we are in one of our favorite places.  We actually found a room inside the park for 2 nights.  Comng here we passed through a part of the Teton National Park, which I love.  The beauty there is awesome. Our hotel room is not air-conditioned and has no television.  We were surprised to have internet in the room.  This afternoon we saw Old Faithful erupt and walked around a little.  We had a fine meal at Old Faithful Inn.  On the way back to our hotel we saw about 4 elk, one with very large antlers.  There are a lot of waterfalls here.  I love it.

We are now here at Mandy”s in Laramie, WY.  Yesterday we went over the Snowy Range to Saratoga, WY.  Doug already wrote about the hot pool there that he loves. However, yesterday it was too hot even for him. Mandy and the kids and I had planned to swim in the Municipal pool that is right next to the hot pool.  Strangely enough, the water was bathtub warm.  I guess some of the spring water was used to fill the pool.  The North Platte river runs right beside it.  The hot water runs into the river there and is more bearable. While wading in the river myself, I slipped and fell and threw my camera in the water.  I hope that it can return to workability. Here is a picture of the grandkids enjoying it:

When we went back over the mountains, we stopped at my favorite spot and hiked to the bridge.  A lovely creek of snow melt goes down the hill. I don”t have a proper picture of it on this computer. We saw some fairly large fish in the creek, but I couldn”t persuade the kids to get it and try to catch them by hand.

Our next trip was to Virginia to vist Jeff and Laura.  The weather was really nice for the first 3 days, and then the blistering heat came.  Jeff barbecued on Saturday, the 3rd, and some friends of theirs came to eat Sunday evening, the 4th, and we went to watch the fireworks from the parking roof of some building where Jeff works.  The fireworks on the mall (which was quite a ways from us) was not all that great and lasted only 20 minutes.  But there were fireworks surrounding us from different neighborhoods.  The day we had chosen to go sightseeing on the capitol mall was so, so hot.  We got to see 2 things that we had not before, up in the Washington Monument and in the Capitol.  The Capitol Visitor center is quite impressive, and Jeff was able to get us some last minute tickets for a tour.  Our capitol is beautiful, worthy of our country.

This room was the orginal House of Representatives meeting room, but it got too small.  Isn”t it pretty?

This was our next trip, camping in Arkansas in May with our friends Brenda and Tony.  The weather was just perfect and so was our campground.  Though we had been to Hot Springs before, we did some things that we hadn”t done before, like taking a Duck Boat tour. We panned for crystals (not all it”s advertised to be, but I did get some pretty ones), went up in the observation tower, found out that it was too expensive to go into the hot baths, played miniature golf in a creepy place, and picnicked in some nice parks.  The actual Hot Springs National Park is free and beautiful.  It actually had a nice campground with hook-ups, but we didn”t know that.  A stream ran beside it.  It was such fun with Brenda and Tony.  There was a super clubhouse in the campground, and we went over there every night to play Mexican Train or Phase 10.

Here we are going into the lake on the Duck Boat.  (Glad it didn”t do like the one in Pennsylvania that was hit by a barge.)

This is the stream in Hot Springs National Park.