Sunday, December 30, 2007

Its a WINTER WONDERLAND out here folks!

We are only a few days into winter and already we have experienced more snow driving days than we did in all of last winter. Fortunetly, Kurt is a patient and practiced wintertime driver- so, except for some white knuckles, we have faired well.


Kurt was in Boston during one of their mid-December snowstorms. Here is the truck partially snowed-in....



We loaded out of Denver on 12/27- in another snow storm. Our load is yogurt- bound for Portland, Oregon. Here is the look out our window as we sat at the Denver loading dock......



As we headed north out of Denver, we were greeted by numerous signs stating the obvious....["ICY SPOTS, SNOWFALL, DRIFTING SNOW"]



And here is what drifitng snow looks like in Wyoming.....


We stopped over in Rawlins WY and this was our morning view. Blue sky, drifting snow and minus 7 degrees BEFORE you figure in the wind chill factor! (In this picture we are driving out of the parking lot-that is not the freeway road surface)


THIS is the freeway road surface- two black ribbons for hundreds of miles!


And sometimes it was foggy and icy and snowy all at once...

We made it through just fine- but here is just one of a half dozen trucks we saw that didn't make it though so well...

On Saturday afternoon we rounded the last curve on the notorius "Cabbage Hill" on I-84 in NE Oregon and we got our first view of the Columbia river gorge......and bare ground. Yay! smooth sailing the rest of the way to Portland!

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Christmas with a baby is so much fun!

Matters are off the road for Christmas- in Denver with Lisa, Amy, Tim and baby Mark. We woke up on Chirstmas morning to a snowstorm- so it is a lovely white Christmas here.

It sure is fun to have a baby to watch. Mark is sitting and reaching for and grabbing toys. He smiles and coos for everyone and everything goes right to his mouth.

Here he is sitting surrounded by toys....

He also loves this exercircle seat.....

Here is grandpa keeping him occupied....

Like all infants...the paper is more interesting than the gift....


Here is Mark getting ahold of a gift and ripping off a bit of the wrapping. All 5 adults laughed loudly as he accomplished this...........
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And our loud voices startled him...with this result......

Friday, December 21, 2007

Good bye to our brother Jay- 6/7/1951 to 11/30/2007


Christmas 2005

Our travels have been interrupted and our lives saddened by the death of Joanie's twin brother Jay. He lived well with MS for nearly 20 years. During that time he ran road rallies, volunteered and worked for the Sports Car Club of America and built a career as a machinist for Boeing. But over the last three years we watched sadly as the disease slowly eroded his brain and robbed him of any quality of life. He had been living in a full care nursing home when he slipped into a coma in late November. Su, Emily, Joanie and Kurt sat with him as he passed away.


March 2007


August 2007

There was a family and friends remembrance on Dec 8th. We shared many funny and touching stories about Jay. He will be remembered as a truly kind, generous and honest human being. We all miss him. Here are a few pics from the gathering...









Postscript for Matters on the road: Kurt took the truck back to the east coast starting on 12/9 while Joanie headed for Indiana by plane to do some consulting work for Head Start. Joanie returned briefly to Kettle Falls and then flew to Denver on 12/19. Kurt and the truck arrived in Denver on 12/20. We are here with the kids and grandson Mark until at least 12/26. Merry Christmas to all.