We left on June 28th for our 6 week trip to the Pacific Northwest and the California coast.

At the end, we drove 6,500 miles in the RV and put another 1,200 on the Miata.

We traveled in 12 states

Our first big stop was at the Eisenhower library in Abilene, KS.

Across the street from the Eisenhower Library,
we visited the Racing Greyhound Hall of Fame

A future Hall of Fame member at the Racing Grayhound Hall of Fame.

Museum of the Fur Trade, Chadron, Nebraska - very well done and worth the visit.

1870's era Trading Post - cut into the hillside for weather protection

We stopped at the Custer Battlefield on the Little Bighorn River. This is one of those places where you can feel the enormity of the event that occurred here and truly empathize with those who died. One gets this same feeling at the graves of the Titanic victims in Halifax and Ground Zero in NYC.

Contrary to the pictures in our grade school history books, the hill on which Custer and his men died is not a slight mound in the middle of a prairie, but a steep hill that is hard to walk up.

The battle started much lower on the hill (down near the trees - picture below), but Custer and his men retreated, trying to take advantage of the the high ground of the ridge. They never made it.

The spots where Custer and his men fell were marked as their bodies were recovered in 1875 and have been confirmed by recent forensic anthropology. When recovered soon after the battle, the bodies were buried in a mass grave, shown by the marble marker at the top of the hill. Later, the bodies of Custer and the other officers were later removed for private burials by the families.

This spot (at the black marker & flag) near the
top of the hill is where Custer fell and died.

Custer is actually buried at the Army Military Academy in West Point, NY. This picture was taken on our 2004 trip to the NorthEast.

These signs are on the walkway to the graves of "Wild Bill" Hickock
and "Calamity Jane" in Deadwood, SD.

This is the marker for the grave of Wild Bill Hickock.

As you drive along the twisty road towards Mt. Rushmore in the
Black Hills in South Dakota, you are confronted with this view
as you drive through a tunnel cut through a mountain.

Here's Tim at the Crazy Horse Memorial carving. This carving started
in 1948 and is being completed totally with private donations.
NO government money has been or will be used.

Begun in 1948, this scale model shows how the monument will look when finished

The Crazy Horse Memorial is located about 12 miles from Mt. Rushmore.

"Thar She Blows..." Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park erupts with a
shower of boiling water every 85-90 minutes. The geyser has been doing
this for thousands of years, building up the mound of mineral deposits that precipitate from the water.

This is just one of the BEAUTIFUL hot springs in Yellowstone. One is captivated
by the sight until you remember that at this altitude, water boils at 195F
and the water in the center of the blue pool is BOILING !

The orange and red colors are caused by micro-organisms that
live and thrive in these scalding hot and mineral-rich waters.

In this hot pool, minerals in the water eminating from a cavern deep in the earth create the beautiful green color. Living micro-organisms create the orange.

The brilliant blue color and seemingly peaceful surface of this pool belies the thermal acitivity below. This pool measured 188 F with my IR thermometer.

This elk was being bothered by flies, so he
headed for the water to get away from them.

Yellowstone Lake has beaches and waves ? Who knew ?

Here's Tim in the Grand Teton National Park, with Mt. Moran over his shoulder.

Here is another picture of the Grand Tetons

Here we are in Moran, Wyoming. The USA has 13 cities or towns
named Moran. We have now visited 3 of them... TX, KS, & WY.

Smoke jumpers' plane at the Smoke Jumpers Museum
and training base in Missoula, Montana.

He's checking the parachute for rips and tears. Luckily, he found some...

Just SOME of the equipment smoke jumpers use to fight fires!
It is preloaded onto a pallet for loading onto the air plane for
air dropping to the fire fighters on the ground.

Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Coulee, WA. It is North America's largest concrete dam. Many are higher, but none are longer.

Gerhke's Windmill Garden - North Dam Park, outside the town of Grand Coulee - made from recycled junk. THe round tub bases are all from washing machines.

Downtown Leavenworth, Washington - truly a Bavarian town!
Pat & Lew Foitek workamped at the KOA nearby in 2006.

Another view of downtown Leavenworth, WA.

The fog is rolling over the mountains as we roll
through the mountains east of Seattle.

One of the reasons that we drove to Washington was to attend a Mustang Club
of America sanctioned car show in Bellevue. Here are just a few of the newer Mustangs on display by their owners.

Here are some of the 60s & 70s era Mustangs on display.
There were 1152 cars to see.

Mustang friends, Ron and Kathy Foster, took us to eat at the Crab Pot.

Just a few of the 75 Austin Healeys that we saw at the
Austin Healey Club USA's national Rendezvous in Richland, WA.

Some more of the Austin Healeys close up.

Eight North Texas Austin Healey Club members made the trip from Dallas, TX,
to Richland, WA, but only one Healey in the group made the 2,000 mile trip !

Sherry and I had our Miata-Healey for the week's events

B-B-Q lunch in the Park.

Sherry won the hat (or is it a flowered centerpiece) that was on our dinner table.

One of the more interesting side trips we made in Richland
was to tour the LIGO facility in nearby Hanford, WA.

LIGO stands for Laser Interferometer Gravational Observatory.
In short, LIGO is looking for the minute gravitational waves that
Einstein predicted ripple through the Universe (like ripples on a pond)
when massive gravitational events (like colliding galaxies) occur.

Here Dale Ingram explains how the purple dotted gravational events,
now spotted visually, are clustered in the Milky Way Galaxy.

The LIGO observatory consists of two, high vacuum, hollow tubes at right angles to each other extending 2 1/2 miles into the WA desert.

Laser beams are focused at mirrors at the far end of the tubes. The theory is that IF gravitational waves strike the earth, the mirrors will "bobble" and the results can be observed and measured by the laser beams.

In nearly 5 years of looking, NO gravitational waves have been observed.

Here is a view down the length of one of the high vacuum laser tubes. The building that you see is 1.5 miles away. The mirror building is 1 mile beyond that.

A sign of all the rain they get, trees line the medians
of downtown Seattle - definitely not Dallas!

In Tacoma, we visited with Tim's niece, Dana,
her husband Bill, and daughter Raleigh.

Tim with the bathysphere Trieste at the Naval Maritime Museum
in Keyport, Wa. THIS is truly a piece of history.

On January 23, 1960, this vessel descended to 35,800 feet in the Pacific to the deepest known point on earth.

Man has never been deeper into the ocean.

That massive vessel you see above is simply to carry this round ball
to the bottom and back to the surface. This 6 foot diameter chamber
is where the scientists were carried during the trip.

Just a small part of the Lavender Festival in Sequim, Washington.
All you can smell is lavender and it's planted everywhere.

Sherry in just one of the lavender fields. For a price,
you can "cut your own" and take it home.

Contining westward, as soon as we spotted the Pacific Ocean,
we stopped for a spot of lunch.

Here we are mugging with the 4.5 mile long Astoria Bridge
over the Columbia River in the background.

One of the BEAUTIFUL sunsets at Long Beach, WA.

We both went wading in the Pacific. It was COLD ! ! !
Here, a wave catches Sherry by suprise !

This is the actual water temperature... A COLD FIFTY EIGHT DEGREES !

On the beach at Long Beach, WA. We both got in
the water a little deeper then we intended to.

In Portland, we visited with our Dallas friends Kathy & Dave Helwick,
workamping there for the summer.

They took us to Multnomah Falls.

Here are the whole falls.

We rode this sky ride in Portland. It takes
people from a parking lot to a hilltop hospital

Here is the view of downtown Portland from the sky ride

From Portland we drove to Cannon Beach, OR. At the south end
of the beach is Cannon Beach's signature Haystack Rock

Here is the north end of Cannon Beach. There really is a great beach behind all that dune grass. The Tillamook light house is on the rock island to the left.

We spent the day with Tim's nephew and his family.
Here are Nicole, Marilyn, Greg, and Lauren Janes

People were riding horses on the beach. Tillamook rock lighthouse is on the right.

Here is the home of Tillamok Cheese and ice cream.

Sherry and Tim with the Haceta Head Lighthouse in the background.

A closer look at the lighthouse.

I'll let these pictures of the Oregon coast speak for themselves.

Here is the Hot Rod Grille with all of it's hot rod grilles on the roof.
They go from 1954 on the right to 1961 on the left. Note the slice of
pink Caddillac on the side of the building.

I talked with this man who was riding his bicycle 6,500 miles from Key West, Florida, to Homer, Alaska AND BACK 13,000 miles round trip)! It was now July 29th, and he had left Key West on May 2. He never did tell me WHY ! ! !

Here is the Coquille River Lighthouse at dusk.

Darkness is falling on the beach at Coquille Point. The white speck in the middle of the picture is the Cape Blanco lighthouse, 22 miles south. (pictures below)

Has darkness fell, the surf built up on the beach at Coquille Point.

Here is the Cape Blanco Lighthouse.

Here is a close up of the 1,000,000 candle power bulb (and a spare)
that illuminates the Cape Blanco lighthouse

Here is a picture of Sherry and Tim after we drove the Miata
through a 315' tall, 21' diameter, 1,500 year old redwood tree.
Tim brought our kids here 30 years ago.

Here are Tim and his two sisters Alison, and Marcia

We spotted this cell tower in the desert.
It was disguised to look like a palm tree.

This is the place in SoCal where the Mexican border comes closest to I-8.
The border is just past those big power lines.

We saw this "Worlds Smallest Piloted Airplane" at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson.