Saturday, September 30

What a beautiful sunrise.  

We headed off to meet at Wecks for breakfast at 8:30 am. It was chilly but we were not outside long. I had the pancake sandwich.  I only ate half of the pancake.  Everything is "Belly Busting".

Then we went to Steve's house.  He had some pictures he wanted to pass on and plus we needed to hang around to see if he need a ride to his car.  He had to make a bunch of phone calls to the insurance, the police, the museum.  What a mess.  But we found that he did not need to meet the police at the car.  He just needed to file a report.  So he did not need a ride.  So we went on a walk on part of the Paseo del Bosque Trail.  We had to get up to where Sue could say that she saw the Rio Grande. It rained while we were walking.  I had left my raincoat at the hotel.

irrigation ditch

Rio Grande

Steve & Jennifer's home

welcome dragon

the killer

Then we went back to the hotel to regroup.  At 1 pm we decided to walk to a sandwich shop.  We had several possibilities, all about a mile and a half away.   

So we headed out.  I took my sweater and my raincoat!!! Bah it was hotter than blazes.  I am not doing well on guessing what to wear. We got to the Convention Center area where google said that there were many restaurant choices.  Argh!!! They were all closed.  We finally found a Subway.

Very pretty area but I am not sure why on a Saturday that everything would be closed. 

Albuquerque has done a lot to beautify the city.  

We got back to the hotel just before it started to rain. What a day.  So I will post this now and the wedding will be on its own.  

Friday, Sept 29

We left Portland at 11:30 am and arrived into Albuquerque at 3 pm. Sue (my older sister) was scheduled to arrive 1/2 hour later.  So I decided to wait for her while George and Rebecca went to get the luggage and then to rent the car.  Sue's plane was late and then it took them a long time to get off the plane.  George and Rebecca came around and picked us up.  The hotel was pretty close. Because it was rush hour it took us 15 minutes instead of 10 minutes. ;-) to get to the hotel.  Steve met us at the hotel.  Then Jamie and Pam came down to join us.  They had arrived around noon.  We chatted in the lobby for a little while then we went off in different directions.  We met back in the lobby at 5:30 pm for our complimentary wine.

At 6 pm we headed off to the Balloon Museum for Lia (Jennifer's daughter) & Chance's rehearsal dinner.  We had the place to ourselves.

We visited for a while.

The Sandia Mountains

Steve, Jennifer and Sue

Steve, Sue, Jamie and me

The Mexican food buffet was very tasty.

A very pregnant Ashley (Jennifer's daughter), was getting the dessert ready.  She had made the chocolate cupcakes.  The main cake was a red velvet cake.

Chance with Aidan

Chance, Aidan and Lia and some kid I don't know.

George is off to Oz.  This is a very nice museum.  

While we were at the dinner someone bashed into my brother's car and totaled it!! What a bummer.  The whole front end is hanging down so that it was not drive able.  He will have it towed.  Jamie and Pam gave Jennifer and Steve a ride home.  At least the person left a phone number.  Hopefully, it is an accurate phone number.

Once we got back to the hotel we sat in the bar and had a nightcap.

Albuquerque, here we come!

Today, September 29th, we will head off to Albuquerque for Lia & Chance's wedding.  Lia is Jennifer's younger daughter.  Rebecca is with us from India.  That is nice.  Our flight is not until 11:30 am so we could have a leisurely morning.  I even had a chance to go on a walk.

home again

We had an early rise and shine time because I had a 9 am flight out of MSP.  Jeanne got me to the airport.  I went through security and was waiting at my gate when I heard my name paged on the intercom.  They were requesting me to go to the gate desk.  Argh! What is wrong now!?  Well, they wanted to bump me from that flight ... but (good news here) ... they bumped me to another plane leaving at the same time but going to Portland directly.  No plane change in Seattle.  I get in 10:50 am instead of 12:30 pm.  That was great news.

Our room, no suite this time, but it is close to the airport.

sunrise

So if I count the entire trip, in 7 days I was in 6 states.  Oregon, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and home to Oregon again.

The flight was uneventful and George met me at the MAX station.  I am back home now.  

3 State Day

We left O'Fallon, Missouri, this morning at about 8:30 am to head out to Columbia, MO to visit 2 more of Jeanne's friends.  Bea & Barb, are 2 amazing women who lead boundary water canoe trips for women.  They decided to retire from that when they were in their 70s and people would not let them carry their own canoes!! They are in their 90s now.

Both are very delightful people.  Barb's daughter, Donna, helped to coordinate our lunch.  We left there about 1 pm and headed north.  We drove through Iowa.

Note the baby VW next to the full sized one.

We had the most round about connection from going north on US 63 to I 35.  But we made it.  Once we got on I 35 we stopped for a quick dinner at Arbys.  

 We got to the hotel in St Paul, Minnesota, about 9:45 pm.  A long day. 

The Arch and Blueberry Hill

We had breakfast at the hotel and then we headed off to downtown St Louis to go to the Arch.  We had tickets to go up this time.  We found a close parking structure and then headed out.  Stopped at the court house first.

After confirming our tickets we headed off to the north tower to get the Top of the Arch Tram.  

We had a 10 am ticket and we got in line at 9:50 am.  The whole process took about 45 minutes.  Most of that was waiting for our tram.  

There were 5 seats in each car.  There were 2 other people in the car with us.  No real feeling of height but it might be a little claustrophobic.  Only in there 4 minutes going up and 3 minutes coming down.  Once we were at the top there were 16 skinny windows on each side.  They limit the number of people going up so that it did not feel crowded at the top.

630 feet up.

Cool to see the shadow of the arch.

When we were ready we headed down.  

After we got down we watched a very impressive movie of how the arch was built.  I had not realized that it opened the year before I started at Blackburn.  At the time I thought it had always been there.

The flags were at half mast due to 9/11.

Then we went back to the car and changed to another parking structure.  We went to the Loop.  First stop was lunch at Blueberry Hill.  What a quirky place but fabulous cheeseburgers.  

There is a hallway that has the owner, Joe Edwards, with a variety of celebrities.  He started the St Louis Walk of Fame.  

Chuck Berry

The criteria is that the person needed to have been born or spent formative years in St Louis and made a cultural contribution to USA.  There are currently 146 stars.  

It would be a cool street to dink around in,  We looked at all the stars and then decided that it was time to head back to the hotel.  

After a little rest break we headed out to pick up Bonnie to take her to dinner.  We went to Applebees.  She ended out treating us.

I had a delicious bourbon shrimp and chicken and potato dish.

When we took Bonnie back we stayed awhile to visit.  That was nice.