A place where the extended Harmon family, their children, grandchildren, husbands, wives, partners and friends can talk, post pictures, say hi and keep in touch.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
this was a comment ...
This was a comment to Steve's post until I hit enter when I finished and my comment disappeared and this thing won't let me get back into the comment box. Hmmm. So am going this way.
Sounds like Alaska is just about as neat as Wyoming! Bet you had a ball! Am trying to get to Lincoln for the football game Saturday, that's about as far away as I'll get this month, then the end of October head to Atlanta for True Value show (good for several hours of airplane quality reading time).
The link to the National Guard welcome pics is in Sherry's posting of August 19-it's worth a look!
P.S. Lincoln libraries annual book sale is a week from tomorrow, Yippee, cheap books! Did you get the one on collecting that I sent this summer? I've really be enjoying lots of "books on books".
Dave and I spent a week on a cruise to Alaska with four good friends. It was truly beautiful although very wet and cold. Surprise!!! We left Portland on Sunday morning driving up to Seattle where the Norwegian Pearl (our ship) was docked. The weather in Seattle was warm and beautifully clear. The next day when we woke up cruising into Canadian waters it was cooler and bleak. It got colder and darker the closer we got to Alaska.
When we arrived in Juneau, our first port-of-call, it was raining so hard they canceled our kayaking excursion so we were a bit disappointed. We spent the day exploring the town where Dave drove tour buses way back about 20 years ago. He loved his work while he was there and coming back brought back really good memories. The city of Juneau itself is nothing but tourist traps and expensive jewelry shops. They did have some beautiful fur coats for sale; everything from mink to bear. Even though we didn't get to go on the kayaking trip we still ended up very wet and tired by the time we got back to the ship for lunch.
There was a really cute Russian Orthodox church in Juneau called St. Nicolas'. You forget that the russians were such a large part of Juneau's and Alaska's history. But in Juneau there were tons of stores that sold Russian chotchkes and souvenirs.
Our next stop was Skagway, where the weather was dryer but still cold. We took a ride on a historic train that took us into Canada. Incredible views. Despite the bad weather in most of the places we visited, it was always beautiful.
After we left Skagway we cruised the rest of the day until we reached Glacier Bay National Park where we watched calving glaciers. Spectacular to say the least. Here's a small movie I caught just at the end of one really large calving.
Ketchikan was our last port-of-call and supposedly the rainiest spot. It turned out to be the dryest and the warmest. We walked around without coats. The ship docked in Ketchikan only a couple of hours so we walked around for an hour or so. The most interesting sight was when we saw thousands of salmon just swimming under the bridge all waiting to spawn and die. But it is a charming little town with some cute spots.
On our last full day on the cruise we slowly got back to beautiful weather again and landed in Victoria, British Columbia for our last port. A lovely evening which we spent walking around the city enjoying the late summer day.
We enjoyed cruising but I wouldn't do it again for awhile. It was very expensive in the end. They charge you for everything except the room and food. We like our cocktails and wine with dinner so when we got the bill at the end of the cruise, we had a few moments of buyers remorse. But it was worth it. Alaska is beautiful and it's a once in a life time experience.
Alright, I finally got back here like I told Mom I was going to when I agreed to post pictures. I too just watched the slideshow the Image Factory guy made and I'm trying to find tissues around this dang place, it hurts using a napkin. I guess I need to buy more. Note to self: don't watch a welcome home the troops slide show when there aren't any tissues in the house! I didn't realize I would even cry that much. Watching that and thinking about the state of the nation and world is just a bit too much. We don't realize how good we have it most of the time.
Okay, okay - Wyoming. I'll just post a few pictures that I cleaned up in Photoshop. I took them with my new camera that I got for my birthday this year. :) This is only a few out of a couple hundred that I took! I thought these would best sum up our trip. (If you click on them, you can view a larger image.)
Mom relaxing behind the lodge.
One of the cabins we usually stay in, Blue Quill.
Grandma, Grandpa and Tim Bishop at breakfast.
Zapato, the Bishop family dog.
Taken while riding a horse, not easy!
Mom and Eric taking in the scenery.
Eric's first time on a horse since the petting zoo!
Out for ice cream in Saratoga.
Dad, as the telescope pointer.
The ridge above Mirror Lake.
The annual in-front-of-the-lodge photo.
Like I said, there were many more photos, but I hope this gives you a good idea of how beautiful this country is. If you want to see any more of the landscape, I have a lot more. I also wanted to do more with black and white, but wanted you to see how it really looked.
Back to the previous subject on the troops, I met Eric's half-brother, Mike for the first time yesterday when him and his wife, Monica, and kids came to visit. He's only two years older than us and she is our age; they have two kids, Isaac(4) and Abriella(7 months). I wish I had pictures of them - they were a riot. Anyway, Mike is leaving for Iraq very soon as an air traffic controller. He's being stationed at Fort Riley, KS before leaving and Monica is moving to California while he is gone. They're originally from California - that's where Eric's dad is from as well (Van Nuys). This will be Mike's second deployment to Iraq.
Once again, I'm so glad Jason is back home safe too!!
As for now, I might just go use the gift cards I got for my birthday and spend the rest of the day doing nothing! :) We don't get too much time off and have been working 50-60 hour weeks. The government raised the fees for most all of the immigration forms, so we are still working on the ones that we recieved in the end of July. Basically, they added Saturdays onto our weeks as well and have the option to run our overtime into that day, which we usually have to because they call so much.
Hope everyone is doing well and maybe will be enjoying some cooler weather from here on out!
Just finished watching the video on the link from the image factory of the welcome party in Kearney (and crying). That was really neat. The letter from the lady in California and his response were, well, a wake-up call. A guy goes along all day, all week, sometimes all month wrapped up in our own stuff, and even if we think we're being aware and grateful. We need reminding that not everyone has what we have, even in this country.
I'm glad so many family members were able to be in Kearney for Jason, and super glad that Aunt Lois and Uncle Butch were there!
Think I'm off to pick raspberries tonight, just finished my every fourth Sunday at work, looking forward to tomorrow's holiday. Will spend it catching up at home--not from anything in particular, just general catching up with a chapter or two inbetween loads of laundry and batches of pear juice.
Still no house sale, we did finally list it with a realtor, and have only had two showings since then. Have been considering unpacking some things. We got a new heatpump/air conditioner and John has the back deck torn off to rebuild so there's still good potential there (for us?). Was kind of hoping we'd have a computer at home by now as we're probably good for a few volumes of postings. Wyoming was wonderful, as always the trip was way too short. Will see if Annie can post some of her pictures. Guess what? I spent three hours on a horse! And John is no longer an insurance/investment person. The longer it went the more he didn't like it. At present he's working helping his friend (the one with the oil well engines that I was helping last fall) get his engines going. We all have our fingers crossed that the project takes off VERY soon.
