3 Days in Savannah

The next stop on our road trip was Savannah Georgia.  We rented an apartment on the third floor of a restored 1891 Victorian house on Forsyth Park.  It was a terrific location.  We could walk anywhere in the historic district and Forsyth Park was beautiful. It had fountains and statues, great grassy lawns and live oaks hung with Spanish Moss. You just don't see that in Reno.

We took an hop on/hop off bus tour around the city to get our bearings and then walked around the city.  We got off the bus at River street and took a sight-seeing river cruise.  The weather was kind of cold but it was still fun.

 We were fired on by the troops at Ft. Jackson, fortunately it was just a big BOOM without a cannon ball.

We had a great view of the historic river front and the Talmadge Memorial Bridge.  There are some really spectacular bridges in South Carolina and Georgia

After the riverboat tour we hopped back on the tour bus and had just enough time to see the St John Baptist Catholic Church. A warm place on a cold afternoon.

A few other things that struct my fancy walking around the city. The Independent Presbyterian Church was featured in the first scenes of Forrest Gump where you see a white feather floating past a steeple.

And everywhere you could see beautiful houses and creative iron work.

We spent a day visiting Fort Pulaski and Tybee Island. There are a lot of old military forts in this part of the country. We happened to be at Fort Pulaski on the 156th anniversary of the Confederate surrender of Ft. Pulaski to Union forces. We had an outstanding tour guide who really knew local history and all about the fort.

The Union's rifled cannons proved to be the down fall of the fort, plus the fact that there were 11 Union batteries firing on them. 

After the fort we were on to Tybee Island, which is a popular summer resort for Savannah.  Unfortunately it was cold and windy, not a great day for the beach so we had lunch and then visited the Tybee lighthouse and called it a day.

We really liked Savannah. It is just a beautiful, walkable city.

Southern road trip

Recently we took a road trip through Georgia and South Carolina.  Sort of. We flew to Atlanta and rented a car from there. I didn't love Atlanta, but I'm not sure that we gave it a fair shot.  We arrived Sunday evening and left before noon on Monday, so we might not really have seen all that there was to see. We did walk through Olympic Park and see the aquarium, so we might have hit the high points.

Calvin in Olympic Park, not sure who the big guy is.

 We have visited a lot of aquariums over the years and we have seen quite a few species in their natural habitats, so I don't really get excited about visiting an aquarium.  The Atlanta Aquarium is great and actually had a few things I hadn't seen before, like the Weedy Sea Dragon.

 It does blend in with the sea weed, 

Also cool was the giant tank with whales sharks and turtles along with lots of other fish.

After leaving Atlanta, in true road trip fashion, we took a side trip mentioned in a guide book.  We stopped at the Ocmulgee National Monument.  This monument explores artifacts of civilizations found in the area dating from pre 9000 BCE (The politically correct Before Common Era which has the same time reference as the old standard BC) through the 1715 CE or Common Era (previously known as AD.)  The most prominent sights in the park are from the Early Mississippians 900-1100 CE.

This is a reconstruction of an earth lodge.  The floor is about 1000 years old, but lodge itself is of a more recent era.

 Either people were shorter when this was built or they wanted you showing respect when you entered. The entrance was not tall enough for me to stand upright.

The most prominent feature was the Great Temple Mound. Not much is known about the mound except that it was topped by a rectangular wooden structure.

And it is a great place to take a picture. We are not in Nevada anymore. It is flat and green here.

A Superior weekend in April

Last weekend our entire family gathered in Superior, Colorado for Austin's baptism and Ingrid's baby blessing. That was 10 grandchildren and 10 adults plus various cousins and in-laws. Most of the time things looked kind of like this.

We arrived and left at different times, but we had all arrived by Friday night and Butch and Emily served up a delicious soup and opened their home to a horde of cousins.

Saturday was the big day.  We all gathered at the church for the baptism. Austin and Butch were ready and relaxed.

And Austin started posing for what seemed like hundreds of pictures.

Dave, Laura, John and Tom Denton came and cousins and second cousins got together again,

After the baptism, more family pictures

I know I took pictures of the Ropers, but I guess it was with someone else's camera. But we got to visit with them at another delicious lunch at Butch's house. Our kids all have great in-laws. We love visiting with all of them. After a little nap time for grandparents we met again at Butch's for the blessing of Ingrid.  A large contingent of the Stutz family arrived for the occasion.

This is a picture of those in the blessing circle. (and Jimmy passing through)

Ingrid with the Stutz family

Three generations of beautiful women

 and Ingrid hangin' with her family

Life doesn't get much better than this. Thanks Butch&Emily and Peter&Rachel for putting this all together.

A not so warm weekend in Desert Hot Springs

A while back we planned a spring get away weekend with Rosie's family in Desert Hot Springs. Ordinarily the weather would have been around 80 degrees, but a cold front dropped the temperatures to around 60 degrees.  That was still warmer than the foot of snow that we missed in Reno, but not quite hanging out by the pool weather.

On Saturday Calvin and Jay rode their bikes to Joshua Tree National Park where we met them at the visitor's center.

After lunch at Foster's Freeze we headed into the park

We stopped at a giant rock formation and the climbing began.  You can't really tell from some of the pictures, but these are really big rocks.  Look for Jays green jacket to get an idea of the scale.

After these rock were climbed we made another stop and more rocks were climbed and photos taken

The next day we drove to Palm Springs and took "the largest rotating aerial tramway in the world" to Mt. San Jacinto State Park at 8,516 feet elevation. We enjoyed the spectacular views and then hurried in for hot chocolate.

Jimmy took a short adventure in the snow and then more Wright Family on a rock pictures

This was a fun place to visit.  We need to do it again when it is WARM!