Just a few pictures from my trip to the mid-west. I didn't really get any awe inspiring scenic pictures on this trip, but I have plenty of just ordinary pictures to do scrapbook pages with. Our first sight seeing stop was in St Louis, where we stopped to see the Gateway Arch.

Gateway Arch in St Louis, Missouri We rode to the top of this in a tiny little 'pod" on the inside of the arch. At the very top (630 ft) there were windows with some awesome views of the St Louis area. This is a view of St Louis taken from the top of the arch.

This is from the Indy 500. It was really hard to get good pictures of cars whizzing by at over 200 mph. I think this picture was when they were running under a yellow flag so they were going just a bit slower. We were sitting on the straight away just after the 4th corner and before the start/finish line. It turned out to be a great place because 6 out of the 8 wrecks happened in our viewing area.

Last one! I'm home! I'm already missing being on vacation. We had a very long driving day on Friday - 13 hours. But it made Saturday a pretty short day - we got to Fort Collins by noon. I drove home from Fort Collins this morning. We took a different route home - up thru Reno and Salt Lake. A much better drive than the trip going out even if it was a couple of hours longer. The scenery was ever so much better.

So, now I'm unpacked, watering the lawn and doing laundry. I guess I should work making some cards or something into the mix because I won't have anything to post tomorrow. I did go to the scrapbook store in Fort Collins yesterday so I have a few new goodies to play with. Back to real life!

Hope you're having a great weekend!

Another one - are you tired of seeing pictures of Yosemite yet? I just can not get over how beautiful this place is.

Thursday was our last day in the park. We took a lovely, leisurely raft trip down the river in the morning. It was so relaxing - I wish it would have lasted more than an hour - I wanted to go back and do it all over again. Have what I hope will be some fun pictures, but they are on a disposable camera.

Hello again! I missed posting for a couple of days because the internet in our room was not cooperating. Darn - I missed not being current.

This is a picture of part of Yosemite Valley taken from Glacier Point. Our hotel was located on the left side almost at the bottom of the falls.

Day 5

Another wonderful day! This morning we took a 2 hour tram ride around the Yosemite Valley. Learned lot of interesting things about Yosemite and took lots more pictures!!!

This afternoon we drove up to Glacier Point. You could see the entire valley from up there - wow - it was pretty cool. (pictures of that later - still have to download them) I left Tracy and Jeff up there to hike down - a 4 mile hike. Still waiting for them to show up!

Hope your day has been a happy one!

Day 4 - afternoon

This afternoon we went to Hetch Hetchy and the O'Shaughnessy Dam. More beautiful scenery. You can't believe the number of pictures I've taken already on this trip - I do believe it will turn out to be a record number!!! (well, some of you will believe it!)

When we returned to the Yosemite valley we got a cleaned up and Tracy and Jeff took me to a wonderful birthday dinner at the Ahwahnee. The Ahwahnee is the hotel that Tracy works at and the dining room is very upscale. (not my usual kind of dining experience)

All in all a wonderful day - and a fabulous birthday! Thank you Tracy and Jeff for making it so special!

Day 4 - morning

What a great birthday this has been!
We started the day with the Ansel Adams photography walk. The photographer gave photo tips and led us to some great scenic spots for photos.

Day 3

I can't think of just the right words to describe this place. Awesome just doesn't even begin to do it justice.

We are having a marvelous time. Wish you were here!!!!

This first picture was taken at Tuolumne Meadows - a beautiful area.

The second next 2 pictures were taken at the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. It is difficult to get good pictures of the trees - they are so big they won't fit in the picture. And this tree is one of the small ones.

Hello from Yosemite National Park. We arrived here around noon today. The scenery changed dramatically once we crossed the state line into California. The remainder of the drive was beautiful.

This is an awesome place. This is a picture of Yosemite Falls which is right across the road from our hotel. Pretty amazing!

More to come....................

Hope you had a wonderful day!

Day 1 -This is probably the most exciting thing we saw all day. Driving across Utah and Nevada on Hiway 50 is not the most scenic route to anywhere. The road is very, very straight, and very, very boring. It was exciting just to see another car - and really fun to read the road signs. Forget rest areas - there wasn't any. We're in the swinging town of Tonopah, Nevada. I lost my $20 on the slot machines - should have quit when I was $10 ahead!
Tracy says internet access is very limited at the park, so you may hear from me again and you may not! Stay tuned!

Hope everyone is having a great day!