I'm guilty of not stopping or looking for interesting spots on my trip from St. Louis today which ended up being about 280 miles to this small town southwest of Kansas City. I just was pushing to get here to meet Jim and didn't want to prolong the ride. So, not much interesting to say other than Jim left Fayetteville, AR a little early to beat a rainstorm coming in. He beat me to Paola by almost 3 hours. At least he had a nice air conditioned motel to wait for me, unlike an infamous failed snowmobile mission dreamt up by a friend of mine to meet his buddy at a trail intersection in the middle of nowhere at a specific time after riding 150 miles of trail. Tomorrow we head to Dodge City, KS and ... read more

My brother, Jim and I are doing a long adventure trip together. He lives in Fayetteville, AR and, of course I live in Orland Park, IL, a Chicago suburb. We plan on meeting in Paola, KS (near Kansas City) on July 2nd. Jim rides a Honda Goldwing Trike and I ride a Can Am Spyder, another three wheeler. We will ride to Colorado and ride for a couple days through the mountains there. After that part of the trip, we will part ways and Jim will make his way home and I will continue on to California. We are going to ride as much as possible on US 50 westbound. US 50 is one of our country's earliest coast to coast highways and in Nevada it is the "Loneliest Road in America." Once I get to ... read more

After golf Wednesday, we had dinner reservations at the Post Hotel for dinner. We were sitting out by the lake next to a fire pit and one of the people there raved about the dinner they had at the Post Hotel right in the little town of Lake Louise. So we gave it a try. He wasn't kidding. The Post Hotel is very north woodsy with wooden beams and fireplaces. The meal and service were the best we had on the trip. Heather even tried bison loin for dinner! The next morning, Jan wasn't feeling very well so we hung around the hotel until later in the afternoon. Brett and Katie rented a canoe and went all over Lake Louise and said it was a bit cool, but wonderful. Later in the afternoon we decided to ... read more

The next morning, Heather and Katie saw Grizzly Bears from their balconies not too far from the hotel. Heather went down first with Brett, Jan and I shortly after her. It was a very large female Grizzly with two cubs. Not the situation where you should get close. Mama bears really protect their young. We got some photos, though. It was only the first morning there and we saw Grizzly Bears! A little later, we drove in two separate cars to the Columbia Ice Field, which is about two hours north in Jasper National Park. We took our grandson, Bobby, with Jan, Heather and I in our mini-van. The reason we took Bobby was to give Brett & Katie a break for a couple hours. Bobby is 20 months old, but has entered the "terrible twos" ... read more

This being Jan and my last full day on Maui, I wanted to start with breakfast at Cheeseburger in Paradise, one of my favorite things to do while here. They have a great breakfast and good Bloody Marys. Well that was the plan as of last night. As it turned out, we didn't get going early enough to make the 11:00 AM breakfast deadline (Alert The Press!), so It would be lunch instead. It was a fabulous day, severe clear and 81 degrees. After Jan got me mellowed out with two Bloodies, she asked me to go shopping with her. Just a few shops she said. Those of you that know me know that shopping is not something I do very often, close to never. When she told me that she wanted to find something for ... read more