Back in AZ

After a year and a half the road trip has returned us to Arizona.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Denver with Angela and Jake and then hit the road Friday morning. We arrived near Camp Verde on Sunday where we will be staying for two weeks before heading further south to Fort McDowell.

Our two month stay at Barr Lake outside Denver was very nice. We most likely will return and do more stints there. I'll take this opportunity to post a few pictures taken around the park.

Snow "flurries" on Oct 25

 We got 6 inches of snow over two days Oct 25 and 26.  Here is a picture during a lull when the sun came out for a little bit.

Barr Lake - Oct 30 - snow gone
except on mountains

Within a few days it was gone so I took a pic over Barr Lake to the mountains.  The lake was still low. Water is released all summer for irrigation.  By the time we left water was coming back in and it was considerably higher than shown here.
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Where's Big Daddy? See him taking
a siesta?

Pheasant

Barr Lake State Park is a wild life sanctuary so we saw a variety of critters including raccoon, deer, pheasants, eagles, lots of different types of hawks, pelicans, cranes, etc. I was most surprised by seeing pelicans in the middle of Colorado.

Big Daddy and friends

Three other bucks on one shot

One evening there were between 20 and 30 deer in the field and I saw 5 bucks, including Big Daddy, at one time. I walked into the field and they weren't too worried about me so I got some really neat pictures including these.

Bald Eagle pair with their nest

One of many great sunsets

We're told that dozens of eagles winter at Barr Lake but there is only one nesting pair.  They were back and repairing their massive nest in early November.

Update from Colorado

We've been near Denver for a month now and all is good.  We've had a dusting of snow and a few cold days and nights to give us a taste of winter.  For the most part we've been having good weather but there is another cold snap in the forecast for later this week.  We've enjoyed seeing the birds migrating through as well as the hawks and eagles that call this area home.  I did not expect to see pelicans in Colorado but there have been a lot of them on the lake.  Huge flocks of Sandhill Cranes went through last weekend but are gone already.

We walk around the lake regularly and have done some hiking in the foothills near Evergreen and Boulder.  This past weekend we finally made it to Rocky Mountain National Park for our first hike there.  It lived up to its reputation as a very beautiful park.  Many roads are closed for the season and in one day we saw a tiny part of the park.  We will be back for many more visits so we can see and hike different areas.

View at Alderfer Park near Evergreen

Rocky Mountain National Park -
Nymph Lake - Elevation 9630

Rocky Mountain National Park
View from trail to Dream Lake

View from trail to Dream Lake

Carl and Ann at Dream Lake
Elevation about 9900

On to Colorado

We spent a couple of weeks in Michigan visiting before heading to Colorado where Ann had a host job lined up at a state park.  We stopped for a few days in our old stomping grounds, St. Charles MO.  We visited with friends and checked out the old neighborhood and old town St. Charles.  After all of the touring we've done of historic towns in the East over the last year, we were glad to see that historic Saint Charles is still in great shape and ranks right up there with the best of them.

Childhood home of Dwight Eisenhower
Abilene, KS

On our way across Kansas we stopped at the Eisenhower childhood home and Presidential museum in Abilene.  The home was another great one with 100% authentic furnishings because the home was turned over to a state trust directly from the family.  We also enjoyed the museum and learned a lot of details about his life and accomplishments that we didn't know.  

We are now outside Denver at Barr Lake State Park for a two month volunteer gig in exchange for full hookups.  The awesome part of this is being a short distance from our daughter.  After all, that is why we are here!  We will hang in here until the weather chases us south.

Pro Football Hall of Fame

Pro Football Hall of Fame
New entrance

Team bench for The Ice Bowl

Today we finished our Hall of Fame month with a visit to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton Ohio. We spent a couple of hours viewing exhibits but this hall of fame has much less detail, much less memorabilia, than the others we've visited this month so we went slow and stretched out the experience.  Over the next year they will be doing an expansion so we'll have to plan a trip back in a couple of years.  Here are a few photos from the visit.  Next we drive to Michigan to visit family and friends for a couple of weeks.

The first of many?

Reggie White - the man who
turned the Packers around

The next Lombardi Trophy
is ready for the Packers to
take home

Oh Barry, I wish you would have
played longer

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Rock N Roll Hall of Fame

We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on Sunday for stop 3 in our Hall of Fame month.  Unfortunately no picture taking is allowed in the hall so I can't share any photos.  I can say that it was fun and interesting even though I had been there once before.  It was Ann's first time and she enjoyed it as well.  We spent about 3 hours viewing exhibits.  We wanted to go on the weekend so we could try to meet Dusty Street who is a DJ for the SiriusXM channel Classic Vinyl.  She broadcasts from the Hall on the weekends. Because I emailed ahead she did sneak us into the studio and we chatted for about a half hour.  It was pretty special.

Lashed to a holder

We've experienced something unusual at our campground this week.  We are about 10 miles from Akron OH which is home of the Goodyear corporate headquarters.  We've had the Goodyear blimp fly over us several times. It turns out the airstrip and hanger are just a few miles from us. Today we had really good timing when we left to go to the store and saw it flying parallel to us going back to the hanger. We quickly turned down the road to the hanger and watched as they lashed it and parked it in the hanger.  What a fun little treat.

Backing it into the hanger

Spinning it around

Niagara Falls

Both Falls from bridge

American Falls from CA side

After almost 2 weeks in the area we finally made it to Niagara Falls. Since we like to walk, we parked on the U.S. side and walked across the bridge to the Canadian side for the best views.  This avoided long lines with the car both ways and Customs was pretty quick (still need your passport) .  The other advantage to this is a neat view from the bridge as you walk across.

After doing the Erie Canal cruise and then visiting the falls the inquisitive mind starts thinking about the St. Lawrence Seaway and how ships travel between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. The answer, the Welland Canal (link to information http://www.wellandcanal.com/ ). Here is a link with lots of information about the entire St. Lawrence Seaway. This link goes to the History page but there is a lot more information including a Seaway map with current ships in transit (http://www.greatlakes-seaway.com/en/seaway/history/index.html). In order to tie the St. Lawrence Seaway with the history of shipping on the Great Lakes, here is another interesting link I found: http://www.linkstothepast.com/marine/index.php.

Horseshot Falls - Canadian side

American Falls from U.S. side

Saturday we drove to Ohio to set ourselves up for the last two stops in our hall of fame month.  We took I-90 to Ohio and then dropped down to the Akron area.  This puts us an hour from the Rock and Roll Hall in Cleveland and a half hour from the Football Hall in Canton.  I'll give updates on those after our visits.

Erie Canal and Hockey Hall of Fame

As we drove across New York we kept seeing references to the Erie Canal which prompted us to do a little research. We both remembered the canal being in history lessons in grade school but we didn't remember details. The canal runs from the Hudson River near Albany all the way to Lake Erie at Buffalo. Therefore, we were driving parallel to it all the way across the state. It turns out that our campground is only about 12 miles from Lockport NY where the canal requires locks to traverse a rock ledge, the same one that Niagara Falls flows over. In Lockport there is

Locks (left side)

Erie Canal

an Erie Canal cruise that goes up and down the canal and through the locks.  We decided to take the cruise to get a close up feel of the famous canal and also experience going through the locks. The narration was informative and well done (complete with the famous song). The history of the canal is very interesting. 

Tow path on side of canal

In upper lock looking down

The trip took a little under 2 hours and was very enjoyable.  Of course it helped that we had perfect weather.  Here is a link if you are interested in learning more about "Clinton's Big Ditch"  http://www.eriecanal.org/index.html and one about the cruise if you are in the area  http://www.lockportlocks.com/cruisesch.html

Modern Stanley Cup

The original Stanley Cup

 On Saturday we drove to Toronto, Ontario, Canada to the Hockey Hall of Fame. It was a little under a 2 hour drive including taking 20 minutes to get through customs at the border. We got there right after they opened and spent about 2 and a half hours taking it all in.  It was a lot of fun looking around at the memorabilia and of course seeing the Stanley Cup (both current and original) and other legendary trophies.  We pulled out of the parking garage about 1pm and into nasty traffic so it took a bit longer getting back. On a side note, we didn't like the look of Toronto. All the modern glass and metal buildings just isn't our thing. The economy must be doing well there, however, as there were countless cranes and building construction everywhere you looked.

The Gordie Howe era