We left Kansas yesterday and made a dash for home.  I guess we were just getting too antsy to get back to our home digs and out of the daily hotel-to-hotel mode.  We made it back last night and now have Beulah, our Bassett hound home. It was a great trip, maybe the best we have taken.  We certainly saw a lot of the country … Continue reading Trip Log – Last Entry

We started off today with our usual trip the the State capital. Of course, for Kansas that was Topeka. It turned out that the capital looked more like the Addamm’s Family home than the capital. The outside of the building was encased in scaffolding and the inside was dark and dreary in almost every hall. I admit that the picture above was not typical but … Continue reading Trip Log – KS Capital, Brown vs… ,KC

 Ok, after today here is my short description of Kansas: hot cows, wind farms, oil,  amber waves of grain and………Ike. Until now I have always thought of Kansas as the State where you get across it as fast as possible. Yvonne told me to treat it like a Sunday drive in the country. That took some creative thought but I think I got it done.   … Continue reading Trip Log – What about Kansas??

I had an interesting Sunday Bible study recently where we covered Romans 13. Of course since this is probably the most debated text in the New Testament it was a lively discussion. I have to hand it to my pastor, he allow a free flow of diverse discussions. I will only cover one topic from our discussions and that is about the “sword”. Here is … Continue reading Jesus and the sword

I have been thinking about how to summarize our visit to Colorado and here it is.   Colorado is probably the most diverse State we have been to in several different aspects. Of course the terrain is diverse. There are the Rockies in the middle part of the State and then there are the plains in the eastern part. Even the towns in the Rockies are … Continue reading Trip Log – Thoughts of Colorado

After looking over all the literature we had collected at the Colorado visitor’s center I did find a reconstructed plains fort. It is located near La Junta Colorado which is in the far southeastern part of the State. We started for there this morning but got sidetracked by the Chimney Rock Archaeological site.  Our tour guide was a retired archaeologist from the University of Denver … Continue reading Trip Log – Found a fort and a chimney

Keeping with the theme of the last post about going to church, it has been found that 45% of Christians who go to church do not go to the same denomination that they went to as children. Is this a good thing or a troubling aspect of Christianity? Some say troubling and some say not. For me personally it is a good thing in that … Continue reading Church Hoppers?

   We spent today in Mesa Verde National Park.  That is the park in SW Colorado where the indian cliff dwellers once lived.  They lived there about 1000 AD so it was many years before the white man came and took everything away.  The park was really neat. It tooks us about 50 miles to see all the cliff dwelling and most of this was … Continue reading Trip Log – Mesa Verde National Park

  Boy did I misjudge the trip today when I was planning it yesterday. It turned out the Durango was still 110 miles away, not the 50 I estimated! And much of those 110 miles were very steep and somewhat narrow two lane roads up and down mountain sides with too many cutbacks to even remember. Instead of taking an hour as I first thought … Continue reading Trip Log – Ouray Colorado!!

     We left Salina Utah this morning but not before we went back and got a picture of Mom’s Cafe and downtown Salina (all 12 buildings). 🙂  We then hopped onto I70 for our trip across southern Utah.  This part of the trip had absolutely amazing scenery! It was hard to pick just one picture for this post but I managed to pick one from … Continue reading Trip Log – Colorful Colorado

 When we stopped last night at the Nevada/Utah border it turns out that the west part of town was in Nevada and the east part in Utah. Of course, as you can imagine the western part had about 8 large casinos while the eastern half was small motels and food places.  We landed there somewhat late and tried to eat at one of the buffets … Continue reading Trip Log – Utah (ugh salty!!)

   We did a dance with Nevada today and made it across the State in one day (about 420 miles) as well as the last 80 miles of California. That makes today #2 in our day trip distance. And at that we also lost an hour as we ended up in Mountain time. What can I say about Nevada. I think two words can pretty … Continue reading Trip Log – The Nevada Two Step….

Just what does it mean to be a Christian. There are many opinions on this topic: Some think being a Christian means to go to church regularly and to honor all the traditions and history of the church. Some think being a Christian is about constant repentance and always striving to keep the ten commandments. Some think being a Christian is about fearing God and … Continue reading What does being a Christian mean?

If it’s Monday this must be San Francisco 🙂  .  We got here about 10AM and to our surprise we got into our room right away.  We are about 3 blocks from Fisherman’s Wharf so we headed right to there and our first view of Alkatraz.  It is much closer to San Francisco than I had imagined. I could see why many of the prisoners … Continue reading Trip Log – San Francisco

Since we will be leaving Oregon tomorrow I thought I would put down some of my general thoughts about this State. Overall I was kind of dissappointed with Oregon. While the landscape is beautiful it is really not much different then western Montana, Washington, or Idaho. The State population is about one half of that of Indiana but there seems to be a lot more … Continue reading Trip Log – Thoughts about Oregon

Yeah, our adventure for today was, as I expected, the jetboat trip down the Rogue River to the Hellgate Canyon.  It was 36 miles round trip and quite a ride. When we got on the boat Yvonne and I chose the front row outside seats.  These proved to be the most adventurous seats on the trip.  As we go started the pilot mentioned that the boat … Continue reading Trip Log – Jetboating…

Today we headed to Highway 101 and the Pacific Ocean.  At least for this trip. It was amazing to find a beach of almost a mile long and no people!  We had two adventures today.  The first was to go to a large cave on the ocean where sea lions come to mate.  There were thousands of them there in the cave and along the … Continue reading Trip Log – To the Pacific…

No pictures today; just some commentary. Where the Columbia River was awesome the city of Portland was a total let down.  It started at 9am with our 10 mile drive into the city. This took about 45 minutes on Interstate 5  in creeping traffic. Now remember, this is after nine in the morning, not morning rush hour! We finally got into the Pioneer Court House … Continue reading Trip Log – The River is awesome but…

To me he short answer is yes. The longer answer is yes, but without the fellowship that a church provides it is more difficult. We all have our own opinions about just about everything. At least I certainly do. If we are left to our own account we will often develop a very distorted view on many things. It is only by conversing with others … Continue reading Is it possible to be a good Christian without going to church?

      Our driving today was along the Columbia River all the way.  The river and the drive are awesome!  It is hard to believe that it is a river because it is so wide. We went through mile after mile of scenic beauty. The three photos I chose for today were from the Bonneville Dam and a waterfall, which I don’t remember the … Continue reading Trip Log – The Columbia River is Awesome!!

We left Coeur d’Alend Idaho this moring on our way to Walla Walla Washington. I didn’t see anything too special about Walla Walla but I knew I wanted to say that I had been there!  It is just something about the name that entices me I guess.  We did find two places to visit. The first is Whitman Mission National Site.  Although all they had … Continue reading Trip Log – Oregon, we are here….

                      This morning after having breakfast with the locals at the Ennis Cafe we headed to Virginia City Montana.  This was originally an 1870s  silver mining town that is still in use today. Most of the building have not be restored but have been preserved to keep them from  deteriorating. There are probably 50 buildings … Continue reading Trip Log – Virginia City and the dash….

I wanted to make a summing up post about my impressions of Montana. Montana is kind of like the Dicken’s story. “It is the best of the Slow Lane and it is the worst of the Slow Lane”!  I don’t think there are many in the vast majority of the State who let their watches rule there lives. In that regard it is definitely a … Continue reading Trip Log – After thoughts about Montana..

Since the small motel we stayed at in Ennis Montana last night did not have a reliable wireless network I am going to be making multiple posts tonight. One included here, one about Montana in general, and one about today’s adventures.  But of course you already know that since this is the last on the blog page. If it is Friday it must be Ennis … Continue reading Trip Log – Looking for cows in Montana….

This morning we went to Mount Rushmore. It is the 4th time for me and and 3rd for Yvonne.  Of course the mountain hasn’t changed  but the park itself has changed considerably.  I don’t know who privatized it (probably Mr. Bush) but it is now in the hands of a for profit company and it shows.  The parking is now $10 and the dining room … Continue reading Trip Log – In to Billings Montana

            We spent this morning in Pierre SD which is the capital.  Those pictures will soon appear on the http://www.CelebratingMainstreets.orgsite along with some of the other state capitals.  After the capital we went to the South Dakota Cultural Center. They had a very balanced presentation of the State’s history. Since I am 1/8 native American I focused mainly on the Lakota … Continue reading Trip Log – South Dakota still?

                                Today we spent the morning and early afternoon in Mitchell S.D.  Of course when you think of Mitchell you must think of the Corn Palace.  The first time I was there was at about the age of 8 years.  It seemed much bigger then. Yes, it is covered with corn … Continue reading Trip Log – The Corn Palace and …

In many church calendars last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday. That was a very dramatic event in early church history. Acts describes it as this: Acts 2:1-12 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed … Continue reading Pentecost – What was it all about?

We spent today traveling through the Nebraska countryside between Lincoln and Mitchell South Dakota. With an InTheSlowLane attitude we decided to take the local roads and got underway about 9AM.  About an hour into the drive we were stopped by a “road construction” crew. We sat for about 20 minutes while a road sweeping machine about 1/4 mile away proceeded to clean some dirt off … Continue reading Trip Log – Nebraska Countryside