Geo: 33.3958, -110.789This was a spur of the moment deal. The carpet cleaners were here at the house and we needed to go someplace while the place dried. Where to go? Someplace close and interesting---someplace we hadn't seen yet... Always a sucker for scenic roads, we took off east to Globe. While not what you'd call picturesque itself, the road there goes through the beautiful Queen Creek canyon. Bob says it's 80 miles of driving for 2 miles of scenery let's-don't-ever-come-here-again, and that's one way---but we learned something.Globe is the center of the copper world--so they say (the #1 producer for Arizona, anyway). After we left the canyon we came to a string of decrepit mining towns put together from garage sale left-overs. The towns were pretty yukky but the mines were Impressive---capitol I. You could ... read more

Geo: 37.0475, -112.526We like Kanab. It's not as touted as Moab, nor as cute as Springdale, nor as dramatic as Lee's Ferry, but we love that it's surrounded by red. Red is big with me.Red walls, red canyons, red apples...The drive from Kanab to Sun Lakes is beautiful--our whole trip has gone through great country, but this route goes through the the mountains to Jacob Lake where you turn off to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, then down, down, down past the Vermillion Cliffs on a national scenic route, Lee's Ferry, pass another turn off to the Grand Canyon, into Flagstaff and then really down, down, down into the valley of the sun and Phoenix.It was like coming home again.... read more

Geo: 42.3222, -111.297This was the last week the roads through Yellowstone and Teton National Parks were open so we grabbed at the chance. The sky was clear and cloudless as we drove up the Gallatin Canyon from Bozeman, and weather reports promised it would stay that way.They were right. The day was gorgeous. We'd never been in the parks in the snow and while down low it was dry, the passes were snow-packed and icy and the trees laden with the previous day's snowfall.... read more

Geo: 45.7836, -108.505We ran up to Red Lodge today for Daisy's IP meeting...you non-handicapped families can think of it as a ramped up parent/teacher conference. Anyway, she was thrilled to have added monthly swimming to her activities for the year. She loves "swimming" even tho, like her mother, it consists mostly of splashing around in the water and very little actually swimming.Daisy and I walked up to Kari and John's house for a bit before we took her out to dinner and then we had to return to Billings and our Red Lodge trip was done. It was a quickie.Next morning we were off to Bozeman.... read more

Geo: 46.8727, -113.996We got to Jim and Stacy's just in time to help Stacy stuff octupus legs. Bright red legs barely wide enough for a hand and as long as your leg. Keith wanted to be a red octupus and red octupus it was--he turned out to be the cutest dang cephalopod mollusc in Missoula--of any color.We had a good visit which included a beautiful walk up the Rattlesnake. I definitely have to go back with the camera because it's really, really nice.We left the next morning for Billings.... read more