First day in England

Well, we are here!!! First stop Stonehenge!! Everything is great

Home sweet home

Here is why it is great to be back in Kettle Falls-- good friends, good view, good food.

Too close for comfort

Kurt is in Los Angeles and Joanie is in Louisiana-- and then this picture comes from our Kettle Falls neighbors. This view of the start of a forest fire was taken from a spot just down the hill from our home in KF. Luckily, the mighty Columbia River is between our house and this fire and I understand they have brought the blaze under control.

Quick trip to Sequim

Joanie is back in Sequim to tie up some loose ends for a few days. Here is the front yard of our Sequim house- the flowers are in their prime!

Quick trip to Kettle Falls

We arrived back in Tacoma on Friday Sept 1st and jumped in our car for the 6 hour "commute" to Kettle Falls. We spent the long weekend unpacking and unwinding! Here is a picture of Lake Roosevelt taken from the hill above our home.

Oregon Hiway stop

We got to take a break on our trip north from LA to Tacoma. Here is the big red truck- the first in line for a construction stop.

We were on the narrow route 57 going over the Cascade mountains in Oregon and today they were placing the bridge trusses for a new bridge- the road was completely closed. But the workers were fast and we were on our way after about 20 minutes.
Here is a picture of the bridge

R & R at the Parker Hotel

We took our required day off in LA on Tuesday 8/29 at the home of our friends Tom and Rickey Parker. Thank you for your hospitality Tom and Rickey, we had a great time.
As you can see, we spent the day in their pool….life is rough!

If you are reading this, please send your best get well thoughts to Tom as he battles pancreatic cancer.

Another beautiful canyon

Further down the west slope of the Rockies I-70 goes through a spectacular canyon that follows the White River. The canyon is so narrow the freeway is built double decker- it is an engineering marvel- and quite a drive.

We take the HIGHER road

There are two ways to get over the Rockies west of Denver.

The normal truck route is on I-70 which goes through the Eisenhower tunnel to get to the other side.


The SCENIC way is to leave I-70 and take the LOVELAND PASS route. This way climbs up another 1000 feet and goes over the mountains, crosses the Continental Divide and reconnects with I-70 on the other side. It add 9 miles to the trip- but is well worth it- even if it is not exactly the easiest place to take a 65 foot long truck. Here are some photos from our scenic drive.

Here we are at the top

The view going down the other side

Another Denver stop over

We had a 5 hour stopover with Lisa and Ben in Denver on Saturday 8/26. The house project list was shorter on this visit so we started our time by having a huge breakfast together. Then Kurt and Lisa got on the roof to replace some shingles- hopefully no more leaky livingroom ceiling.


Here is Lisa leaving for her first day at her new job as a Kindergarten teacher for the public schools in Denver.