Crippled for a Week! (and counting)

Labor Day 2005 – I can’t remember a better one ever, and this one ended up in the Emergency Room! (Yes, with me getting shots and stiches!) A family in my church invited Sara and I to go out on their boat on Lake Geneva (WI) for some fun boating, swimming, eating in town, tubing, and bleeding. ;) Well, ok, they didn’t invite me to bleed, but oh the memories! I had never ‘tubed’ like this before. WOW! What fun! As I always say, “I have a new hobbie!” (Though I’ve said that about many things I’ve only done once!) But the tubing was a blast and I went with the eldest of the three adorable girls. If you want to see me eat water, watch this: WIPE OUT! (QuickTime 7MB) This was before the accident. Then it was in to town for lunch with my cute date. :) Ahhhh, isn’t that romantic? :) (not pictured, the bandages and stains on the carpet.) Each of the girls is a sweetheart! Bundles of fun, energy and laughter! When sunset came, the view was wonderful. (By this time, the bleeding still hadn’t stopped) My highlight (besides bleeding) was holding on to this…

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I Love America!

This is a great year as I get to go see fireworks two nights in a row! Here are some pics from tonight’s show in my home town. Though it is exceedingly difficult to photograph fireworks, these are my attempts. I would also like to use this opportunity to talk about my Great Country, AMERICA. This is an amazing country to live in. I have been to 14 different countries so far, and each and every time I am reminded that not only is America the best country on the planet to live in, there isn’t even a second place – or third – or forth – or…. (you get the idea) The freedom we enjoy here, the beauty we have here, the opportunity we have here, is simply unmatched anywhere else in the world. Yes, there are beautiful places throughout the world, but no other country has the vast variety of natural beauty that we have AND the freedom to enjoy it and to travel around. America is quite simply the greatest nation the world has ever known. Is it perfect? Of course not, we live in a fallen world and it is inhabited by fallen people, but nowhere…

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Splashin’ in San Fran…

I love the outdoors, but I love the Big City too (Chicago being the best by far in the world), but I really love when the two are combined. San Fransisco surprised me by having a lot of nature preserved around this beautiful city… Splashin’ around across the harbor… We spent most of the day packing and relaxin’ but the afternoon/evening was spent exploring with dinner on the Cliff along the shore with another of Sara’s childhood friends and a friend of hers. Too tired for any more pics than these teasers…. Splashin’ near the Golden Gate In order to complete the “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” theme, tomorrow we leave early via airplane to a TOP SECRET undisclosed location to hide out until the Revenge of the Sith…. but stay tuned, there is still lots of photos and reports to blog.(Oh, if you get my blog posts via e-mail updates, don’t hit ‘reply to all’ like Lisa did, or your note to me will go to everyone on the list and millions will get to read your personal note to me.) :)

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Railtown 1897…

Cutting Edge Technology (100 years ago) Sticking to our theme of “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” we went on a historic rail ride yesterday that wasn’t even a part of our plans. On our drive from Yosemite to Lodi, we drove through the Gold Rush area of California, and stopped in Jamestown for some ice creme and shopping, and then noticed a Historic Railtown sign pointing up a hill that said ‘2 blocks’ so we turned – what a treat! We stumbled on Railtown 1897, one of the oldest steam trains in the USA still running, and turns out they only give rides on the weekends, so for $6 each we were on our way! Life Lingers Along the Tracks As well as being one of the oldest, this station and its #28 train is the longest running steam train in the country – after it stopped running for mining, it became a movie train, and has been in over 200 movies and hundreds of commercials and TV shows, such as Back to the Future III, Little House on the Praire, Unforgiven, among others. Engine pulling around to take us back to station. My favorite: a one-man hand-powered train! What fun!…

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Final Day in Yosemite…

I was kinda sad leaving, and yet grateful for four days of perfect gorgeous weather, lots of fun animal sightings, and plenty of awesome opportunities for photography. Probably my favorite part about being here is trying to capture in new or unique ways images that have been seen through millions of cameras for over a hundred years. Rather than just ‘Ooo, that’s pretty!’ point and shoot, I try to find a different way to capture it. Anyway, I try. :) The Tunnel is Calling… My first adventure of the day was something that I am sure few people do. In the middle of the long drive in there is a tunnel through a mountain that is extreeeeemely long. The first day through, about in the middle, I looked off the side facing the valley wondering if I would see what I hoped would be there – YES! Toward the middle there is a tunnel, a man-made cave that leads straight out to the side of the mountain. (Often built for air, and for an emergency exit if the ends of the tunnel were to collapse) I declared that first day that I must climb through that dark cave and see…

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