Day 3 – South and North The subway took us all the way to Battery Park this morning. A quick round of standing in line and we were on our way to liberty island. The ferry ride was short and scenic. We didn’t have tickets to go up to the pedestal or into the crown but we were able to walk around and see the statue from several angles. We had lunch on the island and boarded the ferry to Ellis Island. There we walked through an interesting exhibit on the patterns of immigration in to the united states up to the mid-20th century. We also went through the registration room. It was a great big hall that used to be filled with hundreds of wooden benches. Michelle and Tony took a moment to rest their ... read more

This year our vacations will be all about exploring major cities around the world. We are starting with New York and Seattle. Day 1 - Getting the Band Back Together Michelle spent the last week with her class in Washington DC, so our first part of the journey was spent traveling out to meet her. Tony picked Anne up at school and after convincing several of Anne’s students they were too big to either fit in a carry-on we headed up to the Bay Area. After Checking out Brian and Cathy’s new digs and a great dinner on Historic Murphy’s street, we made our way to SFO and our red eye to DC. One plane trip and a taxi ride later we met up with Michelle at her hotel. She was staying with her teacher, a ... read more

This morning, we succeeded in being on the road by 8:15 (which included breakfast and drying some towels and clothes that had been... umm... left out in the rain yesterday). We passed (again) the continental divide and copper mountain and continued to drive eastward. Just before Copper, our Van turned 200,000 miles (yay). We stopped and took the obligitory pictures, which we plan to send to Toyota! As were were climbing the hills, which were usually at a 6% - 8% grade, we discovered the downside of carrying extra gas. As we climbed, the gas cannister expanded and then out-gassed INTO the car, which filled the car with fumes. On pretty much every major uphill, we now need to open the windows to vent the fumes. By the way, Western Utah and Eastern nevada have a ... read more

Last night, as we were going to bed, the next storm came in. WOW. Tony estimates that there were, on average, a dozen bolts of lightening per second. We have video of the approach of that storm which we will attempt to upload. We tried to watch "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs". The continuous thunder was so loud that we could not hear the movie at all. We opted to go to bed early. Michelle was really scared by the storm (which had increased to nearly 2 dozen bolts per second) so we all cuddled and finally fell asleep. The storm lasted nearly 4 hours at that intensity before finally clearing. This morning, when we woke up, it was like the scene in "Independence Day" when Will Smith's character wakes up and sees all the ... read more

Another hot day for us today so we were up and going a little earlier than normal. Our first stop was Mount Rushmore. Tony has wanted to go there and walk the Presidential Trail ever since seeing it on "The Amazing Race". There were many nice views of the monument from all over the park. The comparisons between Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore are inevitable. The scale of Crazy Horse is immense but the work done for Mount Rushmore is awe inspiring as well. Like Crazy Horse the sculptor of Mount Rushmore died before it was completed and due to the start of WWII it was never finished. After spending some time (and eating lunch) at the monument we headed south to Custer State Park. The park has a great scenic drive through it and we ... read more