7/6/07

Leaving Indiana early in the morning, we traveled straight through Ohia and West Virginia to Pennsylvania on I 70. We arrived back home at around 8pm. What an adventure it has been!!!

7/5/07

Traveling through Oklahoma city, we pulled over due to a huge rain storm that came through. It did not last long but dropped buckets of water. On the road again, we stopped at the largest McDonald's in the world in Vinita, OK. It is also known as the "Glasshouse". The dining room sits on a bridge crossing I 44 with large windows to view the highway. After our stop, we made our way through Oklahoma and into Indiana were we spent the night.

7/4/07

We drove through New Mexico and into Texas. Close to Amarillo, we stopped along the road at a visitor site that does not have a name - it can only be described.... It was 10 older cars that have been 1/2 buried in the ground. Cans of spray paint were available to put graffiti on the cars. Everyone took turns putting something on the cars. Heading farther east, we stopped in Groom, Texas, where there is a replica of a cross that is the 2nd largest cross in the western US. It is 190 feet tall ( 19 stories). Surrounding the cross were statue replicas of the stations of the cross. From Groom, we continued east into Oklahoma. We spent the night at Cherokee KOA campground in Hinton, OK. We were able to see some fireworks from the campsite ( Happy 4th of July). We also experienced our first raindrops that night. We had not hit any rain the entire trip until that night.

7/3/07

As we headed east, we made a stop in Arizona to visit the Petrified Forest. We spent some time at the Rainbow Forest musuem where we saw a film about the forest. Did You Know?Petrified wood at Petrified Forest National Park is almost solid quartz, weighing in at 168 pounds per cubic foot. It's so hard, you can only cut it with a diamond tipped saw! We did some hiking about the forest. We also visited Newspaper rock where we could view petroglyphs, which are lines or drawings on rocks made by prehistoric people. Did You Know? Petroglyphs are sometimes calendars, marking events like the summer solstice with interactions between the glyph, the sun, and natural landscape features. We made another stop at puerco pueblo where the remains of a 100 room pueblo exist. Our final stop was to view the painted desert from an overlook. After we left the national park, we stopped at Stewart's trading post. Thanks to the generousity of the owner, Gazell Stewart, we were each given a sample of petrified wood as a souvenier. We also were given food to feed her many ostriches. The ostriches were so quick to feed, they kept snatching our food cups out of our hands. Ostrich food was flying everywhere. These ostriches were scarrier than the rattlesnakes at Praire dog town. We did get our first taste of ostrich jerky ( yum??). Back on the road again, we made it to New Mexico before stopping to rest.

7/2/07

We got up at 5:30 am this morning to pack up camp and head out towards San Bernardino. We had a long drive ahead of us. In San Bernardino, we dropped off the loner vehicle we were using and rented a van to take us the rest of our trip. "Thanks, Barry for letting us use the Suburban!" Tonight we began our trip heading back East. We did get a brief opportunity to check the GO WEST email. We received an email from a family that was in the Grand Canyon and received the deck of playing cards that were passed on to us during our travels in the G.C. They also passed the deck onto others who were hiking the G.C. (Pay it forward).

7/1/07

Our camp site offers complimentary hot chocolate and coffee in the morning - what a great treat! We got up leisurely this morning and cooked pancakes for breakfast. We learned another new card game called "pebbles". This became the new game for the day. Losers of the game found themselves with dish duty. We did laundry today which took up a big part of the afternoon/evening. When we made it back to camp, we started a fire and again made "s'mookies". Although it was not quite a full moon tonight, from the valley the moonlight was reflecting strongly off the granite walls of Yosemite through the trees. It is a shame that no camera can recreate that view under the stary night- truely magnificant.

6/30/07

We arrived at Yosemite in the very early hours of the morning. We were able to get a campsite at Camp 4 which was down in the valley and within hiking distance of Yosemite Falls. After we set up camp, we played a card game that Rob taught us called, "Tonk". In the mid afternoon, we went for a hike to go see the lower Yosemite falls. We climbed up the rocks to get to the base of the fall. This water fall is the 2nd highest water fall in the world. We worked up a sweat climbing the rocks to the fall. We rewarded ourselves with a swim/dip into the fall base waters. According to Rob, this was the coldest water he has ever gone into. We all agreed that we would all get in and go under, despite the cold. Would you like to guess who got in first??? Cathy got in first but Rob was the first to go all the way under. We were all very awake after that swim. After showers and dinner we entertained ourselves with more "Tonk". The crew loves this card game. We made a fire and roasted marshmallows. We created a new treat which Taylor appropriately named, "s'mookies". It consists of toasted marshmallows in between chocolate chip cookies. We were out of s'mores supplies and improvised. They were very tasty.

6/29/07

Today we traveled from San Bernardino to Yosemite in the Sierra Classic Suburban. We made a stop in downtown Fresno and to a local mall/movie theater. To take a break from all the driving, we decided to watch a scary movie at the theater. After the movie we continued our travels to Yosemite.