We certainly had a crazy week here in Ellicott City last week. Some of you may have seen our town on the National news. Unfortunately, there was a train derailment on the bridge in Old Ellicott City which dumped its load of coal onto two college freshmen girls killing them both instantly. The two girls were enjoying their last days of summer sitting on the bridge and texting friends with photos of their feet dangling over the edge when a train came around and derailed, dumping the coal onto both of them. Crazy. The two were graduates from Allison's high school, so Allison's school was on tv quite a bit too, along with the principal. Sadly, the teenagers enjoy sitting and partying on the bridge overlooking the river and the old downtown even though it is a restricted area. Guess we know why. Apparently there were a lot of parents that took their kids over for a look and lecture on the dangers of sitting next to the railroad tracks afterwards.  They still aren't sure why the train derailed. The train didn't actually hit the girls.  The funerals were last weekend which had an impact on Allison's field hockey schedule since some of the girls on the team were friends of the families. The team was supposed to have a pool party last Friday but just ended up going out to lunch. They did not want everyone to miss out since several members were at the funeral.  And it took a week to clean up all the coal and the train cars in a narrow space. They just reopened the road this week.

On a better note, Ellicott City was once again rated the top 10 places to live in the US by US News and World Report(just don't sit by the railroad tracks). However, we did drop from #2. And we were pleasantly surprised to see Carmel, IN was the #1 place to live in the country! Home of Mom and Dad Seitz and near home of Mark, Eric and Linda Seitz, somewhat near home of Stacey and Matt Draper and in the same state as Sue and John Potts. Why then did Mom and Dad Seitz move away from Carmel to Venice,Florida? Guess they will have to work on that town next.

We also attempted to enjoy our last week of summer vacation. Tom took last Friday off to take Scott to Busch Gardens to finally ride the new rollercoaster, VerBolten. They drove all the way to Willimasburg. The park was not crowded as there was a bit of drizzly rain, but everything was running. However, the park would not allow Scott on any rides with his cast except the Sky Buckets and Dark Kastle which is a 3D ride. And the water park was not terribly cooperative either. We did not have this problem many years ago when our neighbor's son broke his arm also right before Labor Day Weekend. We were all headed there together and we felt horrible because we had walked the kids up to the park the week before and their son fell off the monkey bars on our watch, breaking his elbow. But he still made it to both parks and swam and rode on the rides with his cast. Busch Gardens has a new ownership and it is just not as fun as it used to be-especially after they did away with the free beer! We still plan on going down for HallowSCream right after SCott's cast comes off. And we will probably visit Busch Gardens in Tampa in October when we head down there for one of Tom's conferences. But after that we think we will cancel our membership. Scott did enjoy one fun day of camp last week as they visited DAve and Busters, the restaurant/video arcade/bowling and pool hall. At least he could still play video games! But he really missed the outings to the water parks and lakes(no rope swings or high dives with a cast).

Instead it looks like Scott can ride the coasters at Hershey Park, so we plan on visiting this coming Labor Day weekend. We usually try to go to Busch Gardens over Labor Day Weekend as they have always scheduled a terrific end of the summer concert, but not this year. And wouldn't you know, we had lots of extra time this holiday weekend since Allison only had a half day of school, work was cancelled for her Friday night, and no Field Hockey games or practices.  Scott had the day off of school on Friday and Tom had the day off of work Friday too.

Well, I am sure we will still keep busy. I signed up to work this SAturday for a half day, and we need to stop into the library and get passports for the kids. I finally signed Allison and I up for an International Trip next summer with the Girl Scouts to travel to London, Paris, and Florence and Rome Italy. Looks like an amazing trip. So I can use the extra spending money and the passports!

Both kids started school this past Monday. Allison is driving herself to school. She is quite busy with two school based internships and 5 classes. She started her internship on Monday afternoon in the Kindergarten class at Scott's school. Last week she went in for a few hours during the Kindergarten Open House. She was busy making name tags for the desks and pulled out an old box that had SCott's name tag as an example(only 8 years ago!). She seems to be enjoying the kids-she says they are cute. I am sure they enjoy having her, and I know the teacher can sure use extra help. She was Allison's Kindergarten teacher many moons ago. Allison also started piano lessons again and has had a busy Field Hockey week. Her team had a full day of tournament games last Saturday. We just got rained on once. I helped man the fund raising concession stand all day, along with donating supplies. And Allison got to play an entire game in goal herself. The girls won a game, tied a game and Allison's game was held at 0-0. I just wish I had felt better last week-I actually think I had the flu which has lasted into this week. As long as it is not the West Nile Virus! We just lost a Marylander who died from that flu.

We tried to squeeze in a few more activities last weekend before the kids went back to school. I finally got the oil changed on the van(only several hours at the dealership), bought the rest of the kid's school supplies, got Cookie to the vet for her kennel cough injection and made pasta salad for dinner at our neighbor's house Saturday night. On Sunday, Scott got a substitute for altar serving(they don't want him dropping anything with his cast). So we headed out early for the Maryland State Fair. We had free tickets for my volunteer work with the Girl Scouts. We enjoyed seeing the animals-Scott was watching the chickens hatch and milked a cow with one hand, Allison had her jumbo corn dog and red velvet funnel cake, I saw one horse race and Tom talked to a gutter guard salesperson. We also enjoyed watching Allison try her best at driving and texting on a new computerized simulator. She made it home(eventually) without an accident. Scott hit a sign with his casted left arm getting in the way. Before he could try a carnival game, they were shutting down the fair due to tornado warnings. Guess they learned their lesson from INdy last year when th concert stage collapsed. So we got rained out-we actually thought Hurricane Isaac had taken a wrong turn. And afterwards we were supposed to have a family end of summer boy scout picnic and awards ceremony which was also rained out(torrential rains).

Instead, Scott got all his badges he earned this summer on Tuesday night. I missed the picnic, and so did Allison, but I stopped in to see the award ceremony after my Dragon Boat race practice. Just one more week until race day!

Enjoy the photos of Allison in goal(Field Hockey), Sweet treats from the fair-corn dogs and a peppermint stick in a lemon, Scott milking a cow, First Day of School and Court of Honor Boy Scout Award ceremony.

I'll be sure to let you know how Labor Day Weekend turns out!  Hope everyone enjoys some time off. Glad to hear niece Sarah Bozyk got home safely from LSU to Houston until the hurricane blew past Louisiana.

Baltimore Blog

So Tom was off to Chicago this week for work. I had my whole week planned out while he was gone. It included having Allison pick up Scott for the first time after he finished camp. I wasn't able to get him on Tuesday evening because I am on the Dragon Boat team for Catholic Charities and we practice our paddling on Tuesday nights right after work. Allison was going to pick him up after he got back from the lake with the YMCA camp. Then she was going to get them both dinner, and take him to his Boy SCout meeting. Sounded simple enough. But when I called from the docks to see if she had picked him up, she let me know that he was in pain after falling while running up the stairs at the Y. I never got a phone call from the facility. Scott said they gave him ice for his left arm, but it was really hurting. And he had banged his head. But I was climbing into a boat, so I told Allison to get him some dinner and Advil, put ice on his arm and send him to scouts. I was going to pick up a wrist splint for him after my practice.

We finished  around 730 that night and I stopped into the pharmacy to pick up a splint for Scott. I was actually surprised we got our practice in since it was a stormy night. The rain hit as I was driving home and I swung by to pick up Scott from his meeting. He was waiting at the front door and was anxious to go home. I took one look at his arm and decided he would definitely need an xray since it was quite swollen and he had a hard time moving. He couldn't even tolerate wearing the splint. Last summer Allison fell on her right arm and sprained her wrist badly, but this looked worse than a sprain.

So I took Weds off work so I could take Scott to the doctor. Sure enough he had a fracture, but fortunately it was not at his growth plate and not bad enough to require surgery. The doctor said it was a buckle fracture in the radius, and he could get away with a splint. But boys being what they are, they usually recommend a cast to make sure it heals properly. So on Friday we headed back to the the orthopedic office to get a bright red cast. We even got a water proof cast so if Scott ends up in any water parks or swimming pools he won't have to be extremely careful.

I was rather disappointed in the timing since I had just signed up SCott for a swim test for the Y swim team on Friday afternoon. Scott has been talking about joining a swim team for the past year, and we had a chance to try out for the new season. Now we will just have to wait as the coach agreed to let him try out when the cast comes off. As it is they have a wait list since there are over 200 kids on their swim team!

And wouldn't you know Scott was just starting to enjoy his time at the Y camp. There was a new batch of kids, and he had even made a friend. He was looking forward to the trip to the water park and the zip lines and low ropes course at the adventure park on Thursday. This coming week he was supposed to go back to a few of his favorite lakes, but I really don't want him tempted by the rope swings and floating logs. He is not supposed to be running or playing any sports per the ortho MD. She does not want him risking another fall and possibly a worse fracture. He even has a note that excuses him from gym class when he goes back to school. So he needs to become good friends with the cast for 5 weeks.

At least one good thing came out of my newly revised schedule. I was going to try and take off a few hours on Weds to run Allison and myself downtown for an awards luncheon. I ended up taking the whole day off so I didn't have to rush. Allison's girl scout mentor invited the two of us to a Business women's award luncheon for women that also provide service to the community or financially fund raise for charities. It turns out that one of the GS board members won the award for the year. So we had a chance to catch up with several of the GS administrators and board members, along with Allison's mentor from the chemical company who also helps fundraise for a local city school. We had a great time at the luncheon at the Four Seasons hotel on the harbor in downtown Baltimore. We also enjoyed our Rock Fish we had for lunch for the first time.

I also enjoyed driving downtown through the barriers as Baltimore gets ready to host the second Grand Prix through the city on Labor Day weekend. Mario Andretti will be hosting and will be joined by many other drivers from around the world.

Since I took off on Weds I ended up working a half day on Friday to catch up. And since it has been so busy at work I offered to come in on Sunday too for a half day. I can use the extra time to make up for my  lost vacation days when I traveled to Michigan to help out my parents.

And speaking of parents, my Dad has been recuperating from his surgery last week. He was sent home on Sunday after they pulled out his catheter and he was able to urinate again. He had a follow up appointment on Thursday(my mom is getting acclimated to the GPS unit as she is doing all the driving and keeps having to take my Dad back to the hospital for appointments).  Looks like he will need another follow up appointment as they are monitoring some residual urine in his bladder and keeping an eye on his kidneys. He also saw his regular doctor and she still does not recommend that he drive since he was still having trouble with his thinking. So Mom has been practicing with the GPS to get them where they need to go. They also signed up for a computer class at the library since my brother Dan got them a laptop and they are not sure what to do with it. Tom got them a computer system at Christmas but Dad took it to Charlevoix. And since they now have cable and internet service it would be nice to get them linked up at least to email. Now if we can only find someone to help them figure out how to operate the remotes to play the DVDs.

So Tom got home on Friday. Just in time to drop Allison off at work. I had been out all afternoon with Scott. After he got his cast, we stopped to cash in some free frozen yogurt coupons he got from camp. Then I took him to the boy scout store to restock his uniform. He has been quickly outgrowing his pants and shirt and it was tax free week on clothing in Maryland. I had to wait for the summer to get him a new scout shirt so he could have all his patches switched over. In the summer months the boys don't have to wear their uniforms to the meetings. But summer is almost over! We also picked up school supplies and finally a pizza for dinner! Long day.

Allison had a busy week with her field hockey tryouts and practices every morning. She made the varsity team again and the coach told her she was their most improved player! She even let her play a whole game by herself on Saturday morning during the pre season tournament sessions. And Allison was looking good. The girls had 3 games and won two and tied 0-0 in the third. Our neighbors daughter was not terribly happy this week as she was hoping to be brought up to the Varsity level as a sophomore. Two other girls made it, but she did not. And she spent most of her summer at Field Hockey camps. She also joined track in the spring to keep up with her running, but it seems it was not to be. We told her they needed good players to stay on the JV team as well.  Her family invited us over Saturday night for a bonfire and s'mores, but we opted to take the kids to our favorite MSU owned wine store.

Every Saturday night The Wine Bin shows movies outside on a big screen in their parking lot. They also have wine tastings and give out free popcorn. Since it was such a nice evening, I thought it would be fun to take the kids to see Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure(an oldie and a silly). We went to dinner first at our favorite mexican restaurant(we get to eat outside on the patio and the Mariachi band plays every weekend). After dinner I grabbed the chairs, Tom grabbed the wine and we sat down to enjoy the movie. I actually heard the kids giggling during the movie(they are a tough crowd to please these kids today).

On Sunday it was chore day. When I got home from work I decided I had better get the grass cut before it rained again. Of course, as soon as I started the mower it started to rain. I have never had to cut the grass in the rain before, but at least it got done. Along with some weeding and trimming. Tom was busy searching for synthetic oil for my van. He was going to change it himself since I ran out of my free two year or 25K oil changes(,y car is only a year old, but we put 5000 miles on the car driving across the country and I hit 30K). He found out though that if he changes the oil himself, it voids my extended warranty(very clever Toyota). So now I need to set up an appointment for my oil change, tire rotation, etc. He also found out that he could not locate any synthetic oil to buy anyway. Instead, while I cut the grass, he worked with the kids on their summer math packets and then made dinner. I worked with SCott on his summer book report. Allison spent the week typing and writing up her Gold Award proposal for the bird trail for a local nature center for Girl SCouts.  All this and school has not yet started!

Scott was also busy making himself a costume for Comic Con coming up in a few weeks.Here he is sporting his new cast.

So another memorable week for me while Tom was away.

So we were back to our usual schedule-work and camp.  First of all, my Dad was scheduled for his prostate surgery this past Thursday. It appears that everything went well and he is back home today(Sunday). We hope and pray he continues to heal and stays healthy! And that they do not have to take any more trips to the ER!

Tom and I headed back to work. Allison was busy preparing for the start of her Field Hockey season which officially began on Saturday morning with a 2.5hr work out(whew!). We discovered she needed to have her concussion testing updated, but she had all the other paperwork in on time to start practice. I even joined her and all the other moms and girls for a pre season meeting on Friday morning to discuss scheduling for the year. Allison has discovered that she is a bit of a Mother Duck to all the freshman girls trying out this year. They all look to her for guidance and support. Practice and try outs officially begin on Monday morning. In the meantime, Allison has been out running each day.

Scott headed off to another camp at our local Community College. I had originally been concerned about signing him up for an advanced lego robotics class with hopes of further strengthening his skills for his Lego Club at school. He actually enjoyed the second class I put him in-special effects sci fi class where he learned to do fun and crazy things on the computer with producing videos(like making himself disappear-or just parts of himself in his videos). I was glad he had such a good time. Next two weeks he will be in the YMCA camps and he did not enjoy most of the boys in the group at the beginning of the summer. Hopefully he will have a good time as they are traveling to some fun places.

On Saturday we both went to our local park for the rescheduled Fishing Tournament. Scott ended up winning a ribbon for most fish caught for his Troop(he was the only one fishing for his troop!).  Unfortunately he did not win a trophy for the top ten biggest fish caught that day. But he had a lot of fun pulling in a bunch of small fish-sunfish and baby bass. And he got good at taking the fish off the hooks(but not putting the worms on the hooks!). After catching fish all morning, I had to run over to the Nature Center with Allison to look over her Girl SCout Gold Award project proposal for her Educational Bird Trail with the center staff. Allison still needs to submit the request to Girl SCout council for their approval before starting the project. But she did spend some time last week doing research on the types of the birds they want highlighted for the program. The staff seemed very pleased. Now to just please the council!

We then headed home for dinner at our house with our MSU friend Matt. He is still trying to settle his divorce with Diana and is still really struggling with poor health and limited work capacity.  We tried to cheer him up by cooking dinner and going to the BAtman movie. I just spent the entire evening keeping an eye on  the security staff checking the exit door and stairwells every 15 minutes. And the movie was good too-especially the last 5 minutes. And Matt  had another trip to the ER with chest pains the next day. What a year for the ER!

I was busy at work all week and even went in for a half day at the nursing home on Sunday morning. That was about the only time I had available. Allison and I helped out the Girl SCout choir by recording a few more songs for our practice CD on Sunday afternoon. And then we had our neighbors over for dinner on Sunday night. It was nice to sit out on our deck and grill out. Especially since it has been so hot and then we had big rain on Saturday. We wanted to thank our neighbors for watching our house and cutting our grass for two weeks while we were on our trip. And we had picked up a few gift items to share with them too.

So Tom is heading off to Chicago next week.  I started back to my paddling practice on Tuesday nights. I will be relying on Allison to help me out with picking up SCott from camp and getting him to Boy Scouts.

Scott has been busy typing up his school summer book report. Allison is busy working on her summer math packet. Only two more weeks until school starts! Where did the summer go?

More trip photos-Yellowstone National Park and Old Faithful, Mount Rushmore, Grand Tetons and Jackson, Wyoming(Jackson Hole ski resort), and the Badlands(Big Horn Sheep) in South Dakota. 

Glad to hear Mark S. is doing well in his recuperation from his recent surgery.

Looks like another busy week for me in Maryland!

Baltimore Blog

.........Saturday morning in LA and Allison and I were headed to Torrance to the Marriot. We had purchased Allison tickets at Christmas time for her to attend a comic convention. It just happened to correspond with our trip out to LA. What timing. Allison enjoys the Nickelodeon comic "Invader Zim", but it has been cancelled and a large fan group is trying to revive the show. The voice actors were all at the convention for two full days of signing autographs and answering questions about the show. They also read scripts from shows that were not produced. Allison was in heaven. I enjoyed a break at the nearby mall shopping for Sees candy and my Starbuck mugs. (I was on a quest to find as many City Starbuck mugs as I could. I actually was able to locate one for Indianapolis, St Louis, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. I was thrilled).  Anyway, while we were busy at the convention all day and night, Tom and Scott and Mike had a fabulous time at Universal Studios. They all agreed that the new King Kong display on the Tram tour was phenomenal. It is 4D and has King Kong fighting dinosaurs and your tram is right in the middle of it all.

On Sunday Allison decided she wanted one more full day of Invader Zim. So Allison was back again, this time with Tom. I opted to go to California Adventure with Mike and Scott. We loved the new Cars ride the most. They even built an exact replica of the town of Radiator Springs from the Disney Pixar cartoon. It was a lot of fun.

On Monday we were back on the road. Thanks so much for your hospitality Mike!  We stopped into Vegas one more time. We visited old Downtown Vegas on Fremont Street. The kids weren't too excited with the old casinos, but they did enjoy our stop into the Pawn Stars store(as seen on tv). We could not believe there was a line to get in, but we had to stop and see all they had since we watch the show. Sadly we did not get to meet the family but we enjoyed looking at all the treasures. We also visited some of the new casinos like New York New York.

We then headed up to Jackson Wyoming and Jackson Hole the ski lodge. Tom loved all the moose stuff. The next day we headed into Yellowstone. There are two large loops you can drive through in Yellowstone, each about a 3 hour drive. We did them both. Plus we got out to look at anything that was steaming or spitting or bubbling or smelled bad(sulphur pits really do smell like rotten eggs). We caught a few buffalo herds but not many. I also spotted a few elk. Thank goodness no bears. Tom really wanted to see a moose. Our favorite was stopping for lunch on the upper deck of the Yellowstone Lodge while watching old Faithful explode right on cue. Everyone especially enjoyed the bubbling mud pots.

The next day we were exhausted and on our way to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore and WAll Drug and the Badlands. I had wanted to see more buffalo at Custer State Park, but I had to settle for a Big Horn Sheep at the Badlands. And we actually loved our visit at the worlds first Wal Mart(WAll Drug). We made sure to buy lots of souvenirs, including Black Hills gold and donuts.

ON our trip home we took a side stop at the Corn Palace(as seen on Food Network). The outside of the building is decorated in different murals each year and is made entirely out of corn husks and hay and other various plants. As Tom said it is the Rose Bowl Parade of the Midwest. And naturally we had to have some popcorn.

We coasted into Indiana on Saturday and stopped in to visit with Mark and Linda and Eric who was home for the weekend from working at the summer camp. Mark had gotten bored with recovering from surgery and started back to work that week. On Sunday we stopped into Susan and John's place to pick up Cookie. Thanks again you two. We know she had a lot better time at your house than in the kennel! We then made it home late at night on Sunday and it was back to work and camp the next day!

And my Dad finally got a surgery date so he will be going in to the hospital on Thursday August 9th.

Here are some shots of The Hoover Dam/Lake Mead in  Nevada, Las Vegas(old and new), and The Grand Canyon(it really is Grand!) with our California Condor showing off. And Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo TX off Route 66(my family was busy tagging the cars with their names from leftover spray cans).  More photos to come.

Baltimore Blog

Wow. We just returned home from our two week cross country trip and it was absolutely amazing!  Now we are back to our "normal" schedule.

Two weeks ago we headed out west after a very busy week, especially for the kids. Scott had just returned from a week of boy scout camp in Pennsylvania. Thank goodness he was able to get a ride home a day early and we did not have to drive up and get him. Allison had finished her week up with a Field Hockey camp at Hopkins University in downtown Baltimore. She also finished up her summer piano lessons and even squeezed in a night at work before our trip.

On Saturday we headed out to Indiana to drop Cookie off at Tom's sister's house. Sue and her husband John graciously agreed to watch Cookie for the two weeks we were traveling along with their big Ridgeback dog Gus. The two pups seemed to settle in nicely  per Susan's reports after Gus stopped treating Cookie as his girlfriend.  I think they all wore Cookie out with lots of walks and runs around their fenced in neighborhood school. Cookie was especially happy to have nice laps to curl up on at the end of the day rather than spend all her time in the kennel. Thanks again Sue and John!

On Sunday we drove through Missouri with a stop in St Louis for the Busch Brewery tour. We especially enjoyed our free beer. On our way to Springfield Missouri we dropped into the Meramec caverns for a cave tour.

On Monday we drove through Oklahoma City and stopped in for a steak at the historic Cattleman Restaurant in the Stockyards outside the city. President Bush has eaten here.  I was not as excited about the steaks as Allison and Tom. I would have rather visited the downtown area, but we were on the move.  We were trying to follow Route 66 when able. We pulled into a place I saw on the Food channel-Pops. It is a combination gas station, diner and soda fountain. They sell over 640 different types of soda. The walls  of the building are all glass with glass shelves full of soda bottles. We quickly picked up several 6 packs of various sodas including Butterscotch Root Beer and Brain Wash with hot pepper oil.
And outside Amarillo Texas we pulled over to spray paint our names on the old cars at the Cadillac Ranch. 6 cadillacs are buried halfway sticking up into the air and people stop in to help decorate the cars.

We were then on to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We stopped into Old Town for lunch-an area that is Tex-Mex. I thought New Mexico was beautiful with their large red rock formations. Our next stop was Flagstaff Arizona which really surprised me as it was quite mountainous and wooded with large pine trees. I would have thought all of Arizona was more of a desert climate like Phoenix. Flagstaff is another favorite new city.

The next morning we drove into the Grand Canyon National Park early in the morning. We planned to take a ranger guided tour which started promptly at 9am. We had a bit of a drive into the park to the visitor center, and then had to take a shuttle bus out to our tour route. We had a wonderful 2hr guided tour along the southern rim of the canyon before heading out on our own down the Hermit's Rest Trail. Our biggest highlight of the hike was spotting two California Condors up close. These birds are 4ft tall and have an 8foot wing span. The two were nesting on some rocks just below our path and checking us out! We were in awe of the whole place and especially enjoyed learning some new facts about the Grand Canyon including the fact that up until recently uranium has been mined in the canyon for nuclear power.  WE attempted to hike the full 8 miles of our trail, but after 4 hours we opted to grab the shuttle to the end. A stone house was built at the end of the trail with a large fireplace and long front porch and the place overlooks the canyon with large flocks of Ravens greeting the visitors. We felt right at home! The only problem we had with hiking along the edge of the canyon was the altitude sickness. We were not aware that this could be a problem, but you get a horrible headache and stomachache or nausea. Scott got it first and then Tom and I felt the symptoms over the next few days. There does not seem to be enough oxygen up there at 8000 feet, so it can be difficult to get out and hike. I had hopes of hiking down into the canyon, but figured I would have to be air lifted up by helicopter! So I think hiking the rim will have to be enough for me!

WE then traveled over to Las Vegas for the night. We checked into the Mirage hotel, the old hangout of Siegfried and Roy. They don't have the white tigers on display for free anymore, and we opted out of paying for the dolphin, tiger show. Instead we managed to catch the free volcano and fountain show out front. We also saw part of the Bellagio huge fountain show. And of course we ate way too much food at the buffets. WE had a special deal for 4 buffet meals for about $10 per person/per meal. Can't beat that! We had dinner at  Planet Hollywood  and called it quits. In the morning we headed out to take in the Hoover Dam tour. Very amazing and very hot standing on all that cement. In the afternoon we had lunch at the Flamingo and caught a family Vegas show-part comedy/part magic show. It was a lot of fun. Dinner was after a dip in the Mirage pool at the Imperial Palace. We then headed down the street to catch the pirate ship show outside Treasure Island(they actually sink a full sized pirate ship in the fountain in front of the hotel). Tom and I were a bit disappointed in the new and improved Vegas-they did away with the tokens and buckets of change. Now you gamble with credit cards and obtain a receipt to turn in for your winnings. Yawn. We loved the old sound of the clinking coins and pulling the handles on the slot machines. Not pushing buttons. Oh well. We saved lots of cash by not gambling.

On Friday afternoon we drove over to LA to visit with my brother Michael. Of course we had to stop for McDonalds in the Barstow train station. In LA we had time to watch the opening of the Olympics.

Back in Michigan my Dad was still waiting for a surgery date and Mark Seitz was home recuperating from his surgery. 

Here is a small selection of photos from our trip-In Missouri-the Arch, Busch Brewery Tour, Meramec Caverns, In Oklahoma-Lunch at the CAttleman in Stockyard City,  In New Mexico, Old Town Albequerque and Pops for soda off Route 66.