Sunday - July 28 -- Los Angeles - Day 1

So nice to not being staying in a hotel for a change! Thanks, Dan & Lenora.  Dan made salmon on the grill for us last night - delicious!

Attended church at the local WELS church at 10 am -- enjoyed the chance to worship God and thank Him for our safe travels and many new experiences.

Dan & Lenora took us for a Sunday drive around the sights LA

 We learned about the LA traffic - we thanked Dan many times for driving.

A sight-seeing Twinkie bus - notice the top is open.

The Hard Rock Cafe

Graumann's Chinese Theater...

 Dave outside the Laugh Factory - right next door to the famous Greenblatt's Deli where we stopped for an outstanding lunch.

 

Then we toured through Beverly Hills and saw some homes that his cabinet business has worked on.

Grandma Jeanne and Lenora in the back of our Rav 4 touring "bus."

We drove through Malibu...

 

We stopped by Zuma Beach for a short walk. The sea breeze was beautiful and the weather was very cool with the winds off the Pacific.

Finally we had a chance to visit Dan's shop.

 

Lots of woodworking machinery...

 

One of the magazines where his company's work has been featured.

Thanks for LA tour! We could never have negotiated the traffic ourselves.

Saturday - July 27 -- Boulder City, NV to Canyon Country, CA

Been getting lazy with the blog -- nice to have a place to stop and rest for a couple days!  Dan and Lenora have been wonderful hosts!

We really enjoyed the Boulder City Hotel.

 Two adjoining rooms with twin beds.  Tiny bathrooms - couldn't enjoy fully open the doors

Had a wonderful breakfast included with the stay in their first floor restaurant.

Mom met a new friend while in town.

From there it was off to see Boulder Dam...

Very amazing and impressive. While post more photos on Picasa later.

Above is a stop at Lake Mead Scenic Overlook. Then on back through Las Vegas.  Joyce wanted to make sure that we drove down the Strip...

 After being stuck in a traffic jam, it was on to the border.  For lunch it was my first visit to a Carl's Junior. (This one's for you, Sharon!)

The trip from Las Vegas meant lots of traffic, lots of mountains, and some pretty depressed areas.

It was wonderful finally arriving at Dan & Lenora's house. 

There's a reason Canyon Country is called "canyon country"!

Blessings!

Dave

To Boulder City!

Friday - July 26th -- Richfield, UT to Boulder City, NV

Our Hampton Inn in Richfield, UT was wonderful - great beds - nice breakfast - clean.  A refreshing stay.

Left about 9:30 am and finished time in Utah - more beautiful mountains.  Only green was close to water (like Green River).  Somehow I am thinking of Fievel Goes West here.

I-15 took us through southern Utah and about 25 miles of Arizona before we traveled through desolate Nevada.  I had thought Utah was desolate, but Nevada was really that way.

 First sight of real, live, wild cactus! And HOT!  102-108 the whole way through the state!

The Arizona segment was short, but what some white-knuckle driving.  Amazing rock formations as you are traveling on this tiny ribbon of highway through gigantic crags. Both Joyce and I agreed it was wonderful to see once, but we really don't need to do that section of highway again.

We are staying at the Boulder City Hotel -- it is the original hotel in this area and is nicely redone.  Tomorrow we hope to head by Hoover Dam and then off to LA at last.  The hotel includes a museum of the Hoover Dam and how it was built -- really amazing.  Check out the opening exhibit - a trashed newspaper from Milwaukee announcing the great Depression!

 Grandma Jeanne got a kick out of that display!

According to the records, it averaged 119 degrees a day on the summer they began the project. According to people who lived through it, the temp rose to 120 by 9 in the morning and didn't get below that until after 9 at night.  Don't know how you could survive that - but the dam is a testament to the thousands who did.

Speaking of surviving -- I liked this display about the invention of "hard hats" because of falling rock or dropped tools. The display said that even a pebble dropped from the top of the canyon could smash a worker's skull.

The "hard hat" at the bottom of this exhibit was invented by one of the workers on the dam project.  It was two baseball-style caps put front and back and then dipped in tar to harden!

Couple tidbits of information:  Don't eat raisins bought on clearance shelves and Boulder City has the world's largest Alpaca merchandise store.  : )

Blessings to all!  D

Photo updates posted to Picasa

Those extra photos I promised are now posted on Picasa...

Here are the links...

Eternal Love VBS photos:  https://picasaweb.google.com/puppetmandave/EL2013VBS


Photos from our visit to Matt & Sarah's new house:
https://picasaweb.google.com/puppetmandave/CATRIPSunWaseca


Photos of the Shakespeare Garden - Cass, you will like these...
https://picasaweb.google.com/puppetmandave/CATripShakespeareGarden

Catching up Again???

Thursday - July 25 -- Idaho Springs, CO to Richfield, UT

Big driving today -  no major attractions to stop for.  Finding E 85 gas can be a tricky thing.

We started in the Rocky Mountains - traveled all through Colorado and about half of Utah.  Below are a variety of mountain photos Joyce captured from the car... She took lots of pics...

 Sun breaking through the morning clouds.

 The many moods of the mountains -- you could take thousands of photos.

 New surprises are around every corner

The Town & Country doesn't seem to like running at high altitude!  : (

 Utah is a beautiful, but desolate state.

  Try to catch the perspective of rocks of this ginormous size

 We didn't even stop at the scenic overlooks.

 God's wonders are amazing!

 So many variations!

Tomorrow--God-willing-- we bid good-bye to Utah and travel through Nevada.  California--we are getting closer.  Over 1800 miles on the odometer!

Love to all - Dave, Joyce, & Jeanne