A day off on the Erie Canal

After Wisconsin we drove on to upstate New York and had the better part of 2 days off over Labor Day weekend.

Our first stop was to the town of Palmyra, NY- that is located on the Erie Canal (and is famous as the town where Joseph Smith found the Mormon tablets in his manure pile). We hoped to see the touristy side of the canal. Turns out that Palmyra town is a few block from the canal- so we got a lot of walking in as we toured the canal and then the downtown.

Along the canal we met this marmot (see him in the bottom right corner)



The town has resurrected this original canal bridge in their city park


Here is their information poster on how they saved the bridge.


Although Palmyra is does not appear to be a very wealthy town- there were some very stunning homes. We loved this one...


The local summer time hot-dog stand was not open on Sunday when we happened upon it, but we couldn't resist taking a picture of their sign. Apparently there is another Kurt with an appetitie for BLUE hot dogs!

Wisconsin Backroads

Every now and then we get a delivery that is a little off the beaten track. On Friday we delivered 8 bins of organic Washington apples to a hilltop orchard business about 60 miles off the interstate in Wisconsin.

It was a beautiful drive through the country side. Here is some corn growing....


Here is a neat-as-a-pin farm along the way


Here is the truck backed up to the dock...


Here is the view from the truck as we sat at the dock...

My favorite birds

This is a lake at a rest area in Minnesota. We watched this pair of egrets for the longest time.

Here is the white one


Along comes another one to join him

More scenes from the Painted Canyon in North Dakota

On the road again - heading east

The day after the wedding we were on the road again. We loaded 43 bins of loose apples in Yakima WA. Thirty five bins are headed to the Mott applesauce factory. The remaining 8 bins of organic apples will be sliced, dipped in ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and bagged into individual serving sized bags and sent to your local Costco (and sold for over $4 dollars a pound). We make our first delivery in Wisconsin on Friday and the second delivery in upstate NY on Tuesday. We hope to spend Labor day at Lake Ontario or the Erie Canal.

Some scenes from our trip eastward.

There are numerous forest fires burning in Idaho and Montana. We never saw flames but this valley just east of Missoula was filled with smoke as was much of western Montana.

We crossed North Dakota on Thursday. We took at rest stop at Painted Canyon in the Teddy Roosevelt National Park- we took lots of pictures- but I especially liked this one of Kurt looking over the edge of the canyon.

Just down the road we saw a herd of buffalo out grazing

Later we passed the "Enchanted Highway" - which is marked by this giant sculture at the freeway exit. Apparently there are more sculptures along the side road, but we will have to wait til we make a trip in the car to find out.

As always, the crops interest us. Here is a huge field of sunflowers, yet to be harvested. We also noticed that all the wheat crops have been harvested but none of the corn from WA to Wisconsin has been cut down.

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Our niece Emily gets married

We are in Sequim this weekend for the marriage of Emily and Phil

Here are a few snapshots
The bride and Groom, Mr and Mrs Cecere


Su, the mother of the bride, being escorted down the aisle

Nat and Madeline

Joanie, Jay and Su

Kurt gets bug-smeared in E. Oregon

Kurt was driving through Eastern Oregon the other morning when he encountered a swarm of bugs- that smeared all over his windshield. Here are two views- from the inside and outside the window.... He ended up going to the truck wash in Portland later that day






And here is a funny one- Notice the name of this trucking company........


It says Bert Matter Inc.

What we have been up to lately.......

Newest news- Aug 22nd- Joanie got home to KF for a few days and managed to lay tile in the new bathroom. Here's a snapshot

Ok, first of all we have a darling new grand son, Mark.....And we got to stay in Denver for his first four days- we think grandparenthood is great!

Then we drove the truck back to Washington and went back to Kettle Falls for 6 days. We completed two projects while there:
Laying cement board on the new bathroom floor......

and hanging drywall in the new bathroom (what a great view the bathtub will have)........


Then we drove back over to the west side of the state and visited Jay at his nursing home on Bainbridge Island. He is doing as well as can be expected- he had lots of smiles for us on this day...


Then we got back in the truck and loaded a shipment of frozen crab near Seattle. It was a gorgeous day. This is a view of the Space Needle and Lake Union.

We took the crab to L.A. in 3 days, reloaded with California rice and delivered that in Seattle this morning. We will depart on another trip on Friday night or Saturday morning- but just a short one because we will be in Sequim next weekend for our niece Emily's wedding

WE HAVE A GRANDSON!!!

We arrived in Denver at 6 am on Friday morning and backed up to our delivery dock. At a little after 7 am our grandson, Mark Patrick, was born! We finished our delivery, took quick showers and were ready and waiting when Lisa came to collect us at the truck stop. We were back at the hospital by Mark's second hour... We will let the pictures tell the rest of the story......

He is perfect, and the new Mom and Dad are doing great

See their blog for more pictures

http://www.cichan.blogspot.com/

Two new states!

Wenesday night we stayed in Kentucky. Our first time driving in this state since Joanie joined the team. And the next day we crossed Kansas- another first visit. We were headed to Denver - where we will deliver our load of paint spend the weekend-- and as luck would have it - WE WERE in town when Amy and Tim's baby boy arrived!!!

es!

She can go backwards!!

On Friday we found an abandoned warehouse near our route so we took that opportunity to get some backing up practice for Joanie. Kurt stood well back-- and took these pictures of me concentrating hard

I didn't hit anything--and got pretty adept at backing straight back after an hour of practice.

Later that day we were making a delivery at Stonyfield-- and Kurt got out of the driver's seat and let me do the final back in!! Whoo-whoo!!

Trucking Snapshots

Just a hodge podge of things we have seen recently

We took a new route through Montana on this last trip east and it took us right beside Custer's Last Stand. The tiny blip on the crest of the ridge below is the monument to the fight. Looking at the desolate land- it sure makes you wonder what they were fighting for!?


We also passed through South Dakota on this trip. This is one of the prettier vistas we encountered.....


We were way out in the country-- but this picture makes it seem like we were also way back in time..........


Aren't these interesting up close? These are the vanes of the new electricity generating wind machines that are popping up all over the country. Each vane is better than 50 feet long. I think they look like beached whales.......


Can you guess where this is??

You'd be right if you guessed Buffalo NY!! (that's a pretty funny shadow of our truck too)

Here are a pair of snapshots of horses grazing in open fields. It is always a picturesque sight to see but on this trip we witnessed horses in Montana (top photo) and in Virginia (bottom photo)-- What a different life for those horses!



We got stuck in a traffic tie-up in Virginia on Sunday so we got off I-95 finally and took the back roads to reach our delivery in Gordonsville. Turned out to be a beautiful drive that cris-crossed lesser known Civil War battlefields and went very near James Madison's estate. Here is one of the better photos of our route.