Midwest Vacation

Latest trip was for personal reasons. My Vande Berg family all collected in Orange City, Iowa for Grandma Jen's 90th birthday party. We did pretty good, all but 2 of our cousins made it to the reunion. Jenny was happy to see everyone and we were all glad to be able to visit with her a little bit.

















Here you can see Bill and I, my mom Kae, my brother David, and sister Kim. This spur of the moment picture turned out a bit better than some of those we have paid for in the past. Except that Steve (Kim's husband) is missing of course, he was coaching some winners at the Nationals that weekend.










The luck of the birthday party timing put us there during the Tulip Festival. The court house is a pretty building with a nice bed of tulips out front.

Later after one of the parades I caught a bunch of the children still in costume playing on the court house lawn. The city is very authentic about how they do this parade. Lots of people in costume even in some of the businesses.























After a few days in NW Iowa we headed back to Kim's to have lunch with her and Steve before moving on to Missouri to visit some friends.

Billy and I rode in Mom's van while David and Mom followed us in his van.

I will have to add some more to this later.
Bye for now.

Colorado

Well I have been to Colorado and come back already. We had a pretty good group of soldiers out there, wish they would have gotten more conversions done, but things take time. The base is right on the edge of the mountain range. I thought it was crazy that when you looked East there was absolutely nothing out there, but turn around to the West and there is Pikes Peak, Cheyenne Mountain, and a bunch of other ridges.





The first place Greg (my fellow instructor and travel buddy) and I went to see was the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. Greg used to ride bulls at a ranch down in Georgia, so it was a pretty cool stop for him. I thought it was interesting too and actually learned a few things about the rodeo. This statue of "The Champ" is outside the hall, the rider is legendary bronc rider Casey Tibbs and the horse is Necktie.











Our next stop was on the way up to Pikes Peak.

This view from the resevoir below Pikes Peak shows the slope, the brown spot near the top of the highest ridge in the middle of the picture is what I drove up to get to the top.

By the way there are almost no guard rails the whole way up. I got the T-shirt "Real Women Don't Need Guard Rails" when we made it up there.









This mountain is also visible from the resevoir, don't know what it is for sure, but I liked the view.












When we made it to the top the temperature had dropped about 30 degrees and the wind was blowing, the wind was always blowing in Colorado, but it was pretty wild up there.




This view is westward from the top of Pikes Peak. It seemed like we could see forever. The peak is 14,110 feet above sea level.

After about 15 minutes of walking around I think I was feeling the altitude just a little because I said "The thin is air up here." I realized it as I was say it, but it was oddly funny at the time, guess I was little more light headed than usual.






This is one of the funny sites on the road to Pikes Peak.

We didn't see any sign of Big Foot, but we kept looking.
















After we came down from Pikes Peak we took off for Cripple Creek for dinner and a little slot machine action. That is what happened too, just a little wasted money. But we had a nice drive over there.

The next day we headed over to the Royal Gorge.


This view is either from the bridge or the top of the ridge, I don't recall where I was on this one, but it certainly shows the Gorge depth which 1,053 feet below the bridge.















This picture is from the bottom of the Gorge looking back up at the bridge.


We had a pretty good time. The weather was nice both days and I got some sun.

Actually got more sun tan in Colorado than I did in Hawaii.





Anyway, that is my latest trip. For those keeping track, in December I went to Texas, January was Louisiana, February was Hawaii, March I could have gone to New York with Billy and Gertrude, they left the day after I got back from Hawaii or I would have, April I went to Colorado, May will be Iowa on vacation, and for June I have North Carolina scheduled. If I am not traveling for work I am traveling for fun. Glad I have a nice quiet porch to come home to in between trips!

If any of you are in the neighborhood stop in and visit, Billy will probably be here. HAHA

Left over Hawaii and more

Hello, well I have been home for a month now and am getting ready to leave again so I thought I better start getting my stuff ready. I decided to clean out some old pictures on my camera and look what I found! Old pictures. These are some that I took from the balcony of my hotel in Hawaii the night before I left.



This one is a shot of the fireworks display that they did from the Hilton Resort every Friday night.












This is a palm tree framed by the pool next door at another hotel.
I was on the 32nd floor of the Hyatt, so this was a pretty cool shot. It is zoomed in quite a bit, so it was really hard to get a shot without shaking.

The picture below is straight down from my balcony with no zoom. That pool with the palm tree is just out of site on the left side.


















These pictures were taken by Billy. The mask was made for his art class. It is a pretty good Curious George I think. The steer in the other picture is named Gilligan, Billy thought he looked pretty Cool smoking that piece of hay.




















Well, that is it for cleaning out the camera this time. My next trip is to Colorado so you should be seeing pictures of the Rockies, some falls, and the Rodeo Hall of fame in the next few weeks.

Hawaii Part 3

Well, this is the beginning of my final week in Hawaii. Every thing has gone pretty well so far. We sent two of our original four people back to West Virginia today and six more are coming in this weekend. Training is going pretty well, most of the soldiers are happy with the new system. It seems pretty good to me, though I can hardly believe that the Air Force was doing a lot of this 20 years ago and the Army is just catching up. No wonder we (AF) have all the good toys! Tracking maintenance and hours justifies a lot of requirements, but it is getting better now.

We went to see the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor today. The memorial is pretty nice and the museum has a lot of good displays that tell the history very well.


I took this first picture as we were actually leaving the memorial, but it is the best that I have and turned out nicely.











This is me on the Memorial, with part of the Arizona showing in the back ground. There isn't much of the ship showing above the water line and what does show is pretty corroded.











Here is a better view of that gun turret that is showing. I think that is what it is called anyway. It is hard to tell, but more of the ship is visible under the water. Another thing that is happening under water is an oil leak. you can see it every now and then when a drop of oil will pop to the top of the water and then spread out.









This is the USS Missouri, which is the ship where the Japanese signed the surrender documents. It has been turned into a museum. We didn't go over there to look at it, might have if we had gone over last weekend, but that didn't work out, had to study our lesson plans.












We have had a pretty good time here during the last two weeks, we were successful in the classroom, saw some cool stuff, and built some good connections with the other instructors. This last week is going to be more challenging because of a few factors that I won't go into here, but suffice it to say, I have a lot of work to do, so the week should go quickly. I hope so, I miss Billy, a lot.

I haven't mentioned food this trip!! Let's see the first week, we ate sandwiches from our commissary shopping trip, that weekend we went to Hard Rock, then more sandwiches, except for the day we got a home cooked meal at Travis', then this weekend we ate at Bubba Gumps, you know from the movie, that was pretty good. I expect this week will be more sandwiches since we restocked from the commissary, but I want to go out Friday night, there are a few more good restaurants on Waikiki, the Cheesecake Factory makes the top of my list right now.

I better go now. We are going back to the Swap Meet tomorrow morning. They have lots of good stuff, some of it we can get from the row of shops near the hotel, some of it not, but it is interesting.

Hawaii Part 2

Hawaii is a great place to vacation. I know you have heard it before, but it is true. The weather is beautiful for the most part and even when it is raining it is warm. The pictures below are of my first trip around Oahu. We took off driving Friday (17th) morning and just kept the water on the right. It was a lot of fun.

We climbed Diamond Head, which is quite a hike, and got this picture back toward Waikiki.















We stopped at several Overlooks and saw all sorts of rock formations and waves.















We saw lava mountains. that rose WAY above sea level.
















And watched surfers wide waves that came in from all angles on several beaches. If you look there is someone in this wave.















Saturday (18th) we went to the Polynesian Culture Center and enjoyed visiting villages that represented several island countries. There was also a Luau and a show. The picture below is from the show, we got tickets through a friend who is in the Army. The ticket agent really set us up nice, we had front row seats to the show.

We had a really relaxing weekend. Sunday (19th) we went to the Swap Meet and found some good bargains. Next weekend there are some more people coming in for training. We will probably do some more adventures then. Check back later.

Hawaii

What a difference a day makes! On Saturday, 11 February it started snowing in West Virginia. After it piled up for a while I went out and used the "Snowman in a Can" kit that Mom gave me for Christmas last year. Turned out kind of cute I think, though the missing tooth does make it a WV snowman. LOL



The next day, 12 February (ignore the date, I seem to have something confused in the camera) I was on top of a 10 story parking garage taking pictures of a sand castle that two little girls had built on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. Good zoom on the camera too.



Let's show that difference one more time.
Jenny and the boys might recognize this truck, it shows a Georgia 2x4 in an unfamiliar, but classic winter pose, parked with snow piled on top.



And the opposite, a garage top westward view of the sunset off Waikiki.



By the way, we aren't parking on top of that garage anymore. My rental is a Dodge 1500 Crewcab, the garage has a 6 foot 6 inch clearance. We didn't scrape the top, barely, but 20 hairpin turns going in and out of that 10 story garage were too many for me. We are now using valet parking, they can deal with it. I have enough to worry about while getting up to speed on this system we are fielding. I will have plenty more to share later, so check back when you can.

Between Trips Again

Hello everyone.
Well, I am between trips again and thought I would update you on our part of the planet, which of course you know is located right here in the Flash Earth picture below. I smudged out the neighbor's property and since this is a pretty old satellite picture, (about 1995 I think) I added blocks that show were the garage and Grandma's mobile home are located.

We have been busy since I got back from Louisiana. Mom wanted some lights installed in her living room and since Uncle Harold and Aunt Rose were going to be there for a few days, we hopped in the truck and went down to help. I tried to take pictures of that before and after, but didn't. I did manage to spend all my previoius expense money on new luggage and clothes to fill it up. We had a nice time and came back.

We had guests this last weekend, 3 kids and their parents. My house has never been so busy! LOL We had fun though, made new friends, shot some pool, and ate too much. Hopefully we will be helping them move up here in a couple weeks. Well, Billy might be, did I mention I am going to Hawaii? I would love to help, but I leave on Sunday (12th) and won't be back until March 5th and we really hope they are up here by then.

Well, it is almost 5 and I need to get ready for work. I don't know why I have been waking up so early. Having an exciting job might be part of it. I have enjoyed jobs before, but this one is waaaaay coool. LOL

Talk to you later, I will be checking in from Honolulu in about a week.

Louisiana

Hi again!
Well, I have been to Louisiana for about 5 days since the last time I posted. We went down to continue learning how to teach this system to the Army and we were very successful. We learned a lot and were able to do a little teaching too, so things are looking good. The best part was getting some time on the system and watching the soldiers work on it. The worst part was the hour drive to the post from the hotel, but that did give us one pretty cool adventure.

There was a rodeo in town on Friday night, just about 2 miles from the hotel. That was absolutely the perfect timing. We had been working hard at our studies all week and needed the break before flying home on Saturday. This first picture is of the crew, mostly. I missed Cindy, but I got Greg (left), Ben (Cindy is behind him), and RC.



Here is a picture of the chutes. The bullriders were finishing up some final rides and the crowd had thinned out some.

Earlier in the night this guy had a pretty good ride, hard to tell I know, but at least he is still vertical.


As for the food portion of this trip, we really didn't find anywhere we wanted to go that was special. The other instructor team went out for Cajun Crawfish. We didn't really want the spice, legs, or internal body part mess. Yes, we chickened out, but in our defense, it was an hour ride to hour hotel and we had been staying up late every night all week. So that leaves us with an old classic, you can always find good food at Sonic! Here we have RC, Cindy, and Ben. Greg was hiding from the camera.



That's it for this trip. Next up Hawaii! Can you believe it? WOOHOO! Later all.

Checking In from Home

Hi Everybody,
I know it has been a while since I posted, and this isn't going to be very much. I just wanted to let you know that I should be updating next week sometime, I am supposed to be going to Louisiana. If you notice it is Thursday and I might be leaving Monday, but we don't know yet. Government contracts are a lot of fun, can you tell? HA...

Anyway, to make up for it, I thought I would share this joke with you. It is the funniest blonde joke that I have read in a while. I hope you enjoy. Best Blonde Joke Ever

Texas Part 2

Our second adventure of the Texas trip took us to Waco. We went to see the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame, the surveyor shown in the picture below is in front of the Hall. It was pretty cool, lots of information about how the Rangers developed over time. There was one odd thing, there were guns all over the place in the displays, but I did not see one bullet or even a shell anywhere.



We also saw the suspension bridge, which was the longest single span of its kind west of the Mississippi when it was built in 1870. Why no pictures? Because it is hard to take a picture when you are driving the Wrong Way on a One Way bridge that runs parallel to the historic bridge. It is also hard to get a picture when you are making haste to get out of a place before the local authorities notice what you did. The few locals we saw just shook their heads and laughed. Glad it wasn't busy!

Back to the food subject. The Wurstmarkt in Harker Heights, Texas is worth the trip if you are in the area. They have excellant Jaegerschnitzel, Kroketten, and a wonderful cold salat with red cabbage, sauerkraut, and cucumbers in dill sauce.


I tend to take some odd pictures at times. This could be one of them. It is a picture of some city, somewhere in the USA from the left side of the plane between Houston and Charleston. It was a very clear night. I watched cities go by for a long time.



Overall it was a good trip. We learned a lot about the program that we will be teaching and got to know each other enough so that we can work together. Next trip is Louisiana in January.

Texas

Well, the traveling has begun. I made it to Texas this week and am learning a lot about this program that I will be training people how to use. I don't know how long the traveling will last or where it will take me yet, but I do know that there are a lot of locations on the list, the people I am working with are a fun bunch, and I am doing what I can to be an excellant instructor.

This is an interesting part of Texas that we are in... I am sure it must be. I haven't found the interesting parts yet, it is pretty flat and dry looking, but I will keep looking. Saturday we drove a few hours south to San Antonio and played tourist at the Alamo. Here is the front of the old fortress. Overall there isn't much to look at, but the history is a nice read and looking at the structure is pretty cool. We also went to the Imax theater and watched a show about it. Same scenes from any movie you may have seen elsewhere, but Really Big.



We also did the river walk in San Antonio. It is beautiful and busy with food and shopping opportunities, if you haven't been, you should go sometime. This is a picture I took along the way. The cyclamens were pretty and then the river background made it a very nice picture.



I didn't get a picture of the Coyote Ugly bar that the guys wanted to check out. It lived up to the reputation. I was the DD (and will be on every trip so that I always have a rental car available), which got me free Pepsi's and the guys had a good look and were appropriately embarrassed. HA

These trips will have an unfortunate focus on food. I am alwasy interested in finding a good place to eat and so are the guys. This is a picture of Rudy's Bar B Q. It is located at exit 254 off of I35.



Absolutely delicious brisket and ribs! The cole slaw and creamed corn were good too. The place was packed with people, mostly locals it seemed coming in to get To Go bags. It was really fun too, your food is served on butcher paper in a plastic soda bottle carrier. I should have taken more pictures, it was fun and very tasty. I saw another Rudy's on down the road by San Antonio, so I hope to find the chain again someday.

I might find more things to take pictures of before I get out of here, so consider this part one. We leave next Friday, just in time for Christmas, I have a direct flight so no stops in Chicago or anything. I am so lucky that Billy is willing to take care of the house, of course I cleaned as much as I could before I left, but I only had a few days notice!
Have a nice week every one!

Farm Gourd

Sorry about the long delay in posting. I had been waiting for my new camera and then it was dark everyday when I got home. The sun finally came out so now we have pictures.


Here are the last two gourds I have painted. I used some more DD lessons to do the sunflowers and got freehanded with the farm scene. Folk art, my style. I have another one that I used stain on, but I haven't done anything else with it, so that one will have to wait.

The new camera is pretty cool. It is a Konica Minolta D1mage Z3. Here are some examples of the wild zoom. I can get right on top of stuff. The picture on the left is from the front porch looking toward the birdfeeder that you see in the next picture. A little fuzzy because I wobbled, but what a zoom. That first picture also shows a woodpile on the right hand side by the fence. The last picture is from the other end of the porch and shows a bird sitting on that wood pile. I just think it is fun.


The last couple of pictures are of my holiday decorations, before the tree gets put up in the house. The crazy tomato of summer have been recreated as a Christmas tree in the yard. Ok, crazy, but you have to see it (in person) from the driveway, it looks good, really. grin



Besides that, I have new job news. I happened to be in the right place one day and ended up with an opportunity to teach the Army how to use a program they bought. We will see how that goes, I expect good things. I am off to Texas to learn how to teach it this week. Future postings will very likely include pictures from my adventures. Billy and I are in Charleston tonight, I needed a ride to the airport in the morning and he needed an excuse to go to Olive Garden. We both won on that one. Well, I better get off of here, getting kind of long winded.

Bird Feeder

Mom let me know that she has been checking this site everyday... and that I haven't updated anything. SO since I have an audience of at least one, I thought I better add the latest project. This is a pretty good size gourd that I got from Mom, which seemed to be better suited for a feeder than a house. It is supposed to be flowers and ladybugs in the grass. There are butterflies on the otherside. I don't think the birds are using it, but there are a few "normal" feeders in the yard too. I need to get some more started, Christmas is coming you know.

It is Thanksgiving and I have nothing to do. Kinda nice this year, but I sort of miss the mess. HA We are on our way to Bill's sister's house for dinner, so I better get going.
Updated 26 Nov
Turns out I was wrong on two parts, Dave chimed in to let me know I have at least two viewers and the birds ARE using the feeder. They actually sit inside to snack. Once I get my Christmas present (camera with 12/4 zoom) I can take some pictures of the birds.

Bill Joins Up

This week was pretty uneventful until Thursday. A normal day for me is pretty much work and sleep. This Thursday started with a dental appointment, then my supervisor came down from Fairmont to complete my annual eval... only 6 months late, last year was 11 months, but next year looks promising for on time delivery. I will miss the back checks though. HA After lunching with him and talking about the past year and the future, my day was pretty well shot.

Then I had to get to a hair cut and make it to Concord by 6pm for Bill's induction ceremony. He was asked to join Kappa Delta Pi, an international honor society for education. The man is so smart. The ceremony was kind of odd, the chapter chancellor read us a story. We were all inspired to make a difference. Bill's sister joined too, she is in graduate school now, heading for an administration position, which she said "No Way" to a few years ago and Bill is repeating now. She brought their Mom along to see the ceremony. Good thing, she had a camera. I'll add a picture when they get developed. I really need to pick out a good digital camera. After the ceremony we went to eat dinner at the local eatery.

That was my busy day. Today, I baked bread and fed the dog. More my speed. Hey it was a holiday!

Surviving It

Well, I survived an unplanned 5K. Back on Wednesday M. reminded me about the Pipestem Pumpkin Run and said that A. was considering doing the 5k walk. I haven't been walking at all lately, but I usually do hills when I am active. A. has been walking on a treadmill quite a bit, but not hills. I figured we would be a great pair out there on the course. Well, I am not sure if I was much help to her, but I know she helped me keep moving. We kept up pretty well with a couple of other women on the course, a man passed us, but he had a young German Shepherd towing him along, I told him I needed a sled dog too. HA We finished in 47 minutes and 19 seconds. Good enough for 6th and 7th place trophies for the walk division. Not horrible or in last place.



High points: We made it to the halfway turn around before the 10k runners caught us and the finish line before M. finished his 10k, only 70 seconds later and 2nd in this age group. Their kids ran in the fun run too, so everyone went home with a prize.
Low points: I was totally wiped out when I got home. More preparation is definately an asset to competition. I sat on the porch with the dogs for a little while and thought about curling up to take a nap right there, but figured Billy would think I had fainted and freak out, so I went in the house and landed on the couch for a while.
It was all worth the effort though and I hope to keep moving. Half of my closet is waiting for me to drop a few pounds.

Visit to the Vet

Jake had some sort of run in with something on Monday, probably very early in the morning. That night we discovered he had a 4 inch cut in his shoulder, just below his coller. I got him to the vet in the morning and they shaved his shoulder and stitched him up with a drainage tube dangling out. It would have been better if we got him there earlier, but the cut was under his hair and he wasn't even acting hurt, he even ran with the four wheeler to feed the cows. This picture is after the drain tube was removed on Saturday.



We gave him a bath to see if there was any more damage and didn't see any, but I knew he was hurting some when he didn't do the normal after bath shake, he started to a couple of times and then stopped. Well, he is home after a day with the vet, he took over Bill's chair, and looks like he is staying there for the night. He does Pitiful pretty well, don't you think?


Updated 5 Nov 05