Joe's Retirement Travels

Hi from Thermopolis, Wyoming and the home of Jim & Carol!    Carol served a delicious breakfast casserole (sausage, eggs, cheese, bread, cream, half & half) and fruit and muffins and orange juice.  The day broke clear and sunny and COLD!  Jim had a list of 'must sees'. Neat metal street signs in town: (incl. moose,fish,buffalo, etc)  Black Butte in .. background. Drove to the entry to town to find the "Wedding of the Waters" sign at the start of the canyon : Early morning sun showcased some of the area's spectacular scenery : Jim then drove us to the downtown area to look at some buildings.  Here's the post office, built 1931. Jim and I went in to get the mail as Carol visited with a friend that had dogs that wanted her attention. When Jim & I came out, an old friend greeted the other .. "hey you senile old fart !!" ( missing you,  LarryJo  ! ) Here is the former Carnegie Library, built in 1919. Now...

18-deg. to start in Ft.Collins!    brrrrrr  I haven't worn flip-flops or shorts in a week!   Why?   Oh yeah, I'm on a 'journey'.   Today I find out the deprivations and hardships the pioneers faced on the largest 'un-forced' migration in the history of the world when 400,000+ traveled across mid-America to the West.    But first, leave Colorado and enter Wyoming at their beautiful SE Wyoming Welcome Center! One of the first things you see is a wooly mammoth set of bones, highlighting dinosaur digs in Wyoming.   It's a life-sized Columbian mammoth cast similar to 11,600-year-old  "Dee" at the Tate Geological Museum in Casper. Don't be bashful!  Get out there and travel on the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.   There's lots to see and do.    Most states have invested in building gorgeous welcome centers.   Here's a few more pic's : Getting back on I-25, I enjoye...

Just 7-days ago I was in 80-deg. air and 80-deg.Gulf water .. and TODAY I drove the first 200-miles in blowing snow.  I'm fortunate that the air temperature hung around 33-deg. so the roads were mostly wet or slushy.   By the time I arrived at Fort Larned National Historic Site, it was a raging snowstorm. Look at the two pictures below, the first - as I arrived, the second - when I was walking the compound. Fort Larned was built to protect settlers and freight haulers on the Santa Fe Trail from Indians, from 1859 to 1878.    The Santa Fe trail ran from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico.   It was approx. 800-miles long.   All the buildings on this site are original. The Buffalo Soldiers, 10th Cavalry, came out from Fort Leavenworth and showed exemplary service. Look at the books that were in the post library : Gave up on my search for back roads and headed north to find I-70.    Stopped in LaCros...

Brrrr .. it's getting ready to SNOOOOW!!    I'm going back to Captiva!    Bev left for school at oh dark thirty and I got to sleep in a bit.    Finished laundry and headed over to the Kansas Air Museum. and from the front : This used to serve as the Wichita Municipal Airport from 1935 to 1951.   Shortly afterwards it became part of McConnell Air Force Base.   Here's some interesting info. : This blue and yellow plane is a Watkins Skylark SL, # NC102V, operated out of Wichita in 1930. cost: $900,  103mph max, gross wt: 1350 lbs,   20-gal. fuel tank, got 20-miles/gallon This is what's on the ceilings of this three story building.   It's an aviation AND an Indian design.    The gentleman who's lovingly touched-up the ceilings for the last 10-years saw me staring and taking pictures.   There went my next 40-minutes.   What an airplane buff.  ...