I Wonder as I Wander…

We are back in San Antonio—we were here 10 years ago. And, although it has changed a lot—it’s still pretty much the same, especially along the Riverwalk where we spent most of our free time. Although we didn’t have too much free time—Bob was in meetings most days, and with my convention a little over a week away, I was really busy with details for it.

We got here Monday evening, checked into our hotel and went walking along the River to stretch our legs. We found a nice restaurant where we shared an appetizer of crab salad, shrimp, and salmon. Then we split a meal of fish—they even plated the two meals separately—very fancy.

The next days passed in a blur of Bob going off to his meetings (earlier every day it seemed, until his Friday morning one was at 7:30 am). He usually had a couple hours off for lunch, so we would walk down to one of the restaurants along the river, sit outside at one of the tables and enjoy lunch—food always tastes so good when you eat outside! One of our favorite places is Country Line Barbeque—although they serve huge portions. One day I had a BBQ appetizer that included four pork ribs, a HUGE beef rib, smoked turkey, and a good amount of brisket. It was really good—I’ve discovered I really like brisket.

In the evenings, we would walk generally after we ate supper—we went to both ends of the riverwalk. You can only stroll where it’s so busy and through all the restaurants, because it’s so crowded and you just thread your way slowly. But, if you get out to the main river, there aren’t too many people and you can walk seriously. At one end, they are expanding the boardwalk, so they have diverted the river, so it’s dry and they can work on it. There was also an explanation of how they built a tunnel under the river that comes out a lot lower and quite a ways down the river to keep it from flooding the town. They can also close off the loop that goes through where all the hotels and restaurants are—and I guess they do every January, for maintenance. We never took the boat ride this year that explained all that, but since we were walking along the river so much, we heard most of it as the boats would go by.

For the Friday banquet at Bob’s convention, they had something a little different. We loaded into coaches and traveled out to the Knibbe Ranch. This was a working ranch—although we only saw one cow—and he had a saddle on him (you could get your photo taken on this longhorn steer). One of their wranglers came riding him, cracking a whip and twirling a lasso! Real ‘cowboy stuff’—I figure Sandy and Al will cringe if they see a picture of me on a cow—especially since he laid down and people just kept crawling on him (Bob and I included!) We had a wonderful meal of brisket (the Country Line’s was better, but it was still good), catfish, and other southern food. Again, we ate at picnic tables outside. There were about 300 people who went to the ranch.

The ranch must have had an agreement with the Marriott, because the napkins were from the Marriott and we had to sign a release saying we wouldn’t hold the Marriott responsible if we got hurt (falling from the cow!). The ranch was unique, because some archeologists had completed a dig there. At one place on the ranch, there were rocks that formed a fairly steep cliff. The prehistoric people had run buffalo over the cliff as part of their hunting. They found stones that were broke at 90 degree angles--that’s what archeologists look for to decide if there might be artifacts in an area. These people cooked on large flat slabs which they laid right on the fire—after a while the slabs would break from the heat (into right angles), so they would find another slab and set it on top of the last one.

From this area they found many spearheads—this was before the bow and arrow was used. They also found some atlatls—which is the tool the people used to throw their spears farther and harder. Right next to the cliff, they found many buffalo bones, because the people couldn’t move the buffalo—so would butcher it where it fell and haul the meat to the cooking area. It was really interesting. We went to that area on a hay ride, from there we went to a large hill where we could see a long ways in every direction. Just about the time we got up there, the moon came up and it was beautiful—totally full, huge, and bright orange when it came up.

The wife told us about the ranch. It had been in her husband’s family for five generations and started out about 20,000 acres—it’s been divided up because of the descendents. Their operation is breeding cattle and selling the calves. The cattle they have is a breed called Tiger stripe. I guess it’s a cross between Brahmas and White Faced Hereford. The Hereford has a better taste, but can’t survive on sparse grass. The Brahmas are a tough breed that can survive on anything, but are tough meat. So all their cows are this crossbreed—and are striped, which is where they get the name Tiger stripe. They then breed these cows to a Black Angus bull—which they said takes all the Brahma out of them.

They need this tougher breed because they have droughts all the time—some last for 3-4 years. Since the land is hilly and no water, they can’t hay, so the cows have to live off the grazing. I guess when they haven’t had rain—so there’s no grass, they burn the spines off the flat leafed cacti and the cows will eat them.

Saturday morning was Bob’s closing session, which included rolls and juice—so I went along. The speaker was LaDonna Gatlin, who is the younger sister of The Gatlin Brothers. She used to sing with them, until she decided to get married and have a family and leave the traveling behind. She is a great speaker—with a real sense of humor and would break into song quite often. We really laughed through all her talk. She did have a great message that she put to Do, Re, Mi

Do – Do the right thing
Re – Realize your potential by helping others realize theirs.
Mi – Mind your manners
Fa – Failures to fertilizer
So – Solutions begin with me
La – Laugh often
Ti – Time is valuable
And that brings us back to Do – Do the right thing!

We got ticket for the IMAX theatre of the 3D film of Mummies—it was really interesting of how the early Egyptians learned to mummify bodies and how modern scientists are trying to use some of the DNA from them to study diseases like malaria. We also learned about a man who learned to read hieroglyphics and in 1880, he discovered some grave robbers who had some artifacts from pharos—they discovered a burial site that had the mummies of 16 pharos and lots of others. They moved the mummies to a museum in Cairo, and shortly after, the tomb they found them in collapsed—so it was a good thing they moved them.

That evening we went to an ice show Disney’s High School Musical. It was OK, but would have been better if we had a few little girls with us who knew and loved the show. We didn’t know anything about it—in fact, we called Kara to learn what the plot was. There was a family with a little girl about 4 or 5 who sang along with every song. She also ended up with a toy microphone that flashed different colors and a pompom thing that spun with lots of different lights. The show was in the Alamo Dome—where the Spurs play basketball, but it was really empty—they only used half the arena, and none of the balconies, but probably only half the seats were filled.

Our room had a balcony that overlooked the river. We spent a fair amount of time in the evening, sitting out there enjoying the sights and sounds (we could hear the pan flute player from across the way). The sun would hit the balcony about 4 in the afternoon, so we got a little start on our tan.

On Easter Sunday, we attended an Easter Morning Sunrise service that was in the Arneson Theatre which is right on the riverwalk. In fact the stage in on one side of the river and an amphitheatre is on the other side. It's three Lutheran Churches that go together to put on a wonderful service--they have a combined choir, plus trumpets, organs and wonderful music. It was very special!

This trip took us to Seattle and then to Vancouver, WA. I was all excited thinking I could go into Canada and Victoria Island—until they told me Vancouver, WA is actually right by Portland, OR. We ended up flying to Seattle, because it was much cheaper than going to Portland—and was only a couple hours of driving.

We got in on Thursday evening and headed south for Vancouver. Since we were two hours later, we were hungry so stopped to eat at a Black Angus. Obviously they specialize in steak—and it was really good. It was dark by the time we got out of the restaurant, so we didn’t see much the rest of the way. We basically found our hotel and went to bed. The next morning, we had some time to explore, so we drove to Mount St. Helens. It was beautiful—a lot taller than the other mountains around it and totally covered with snow. Really pretty!

We couldn’t get too close, because the road was blocked by snow. I would love to go back some time when we could drive up as close as possible and then do some hiking. We were reading the literature and one trail goes up several thousand feet in 5 miles. (I don’t think we’ll do that one). There were several huge bridges that we crossed and we went up around 3,000 feet. We saw one deer and a herd of elk. The one nice thing about being there at this time of year was there were no crowds. In the summer, it would probably be bumper to bumper traffic and tons of people.

We stopped at a visitor’s center and they had glass that was made from the volcanic ash. I guess during the summer the artist works right there. I love watching glass blowers—it is really neat. We bought our Christmas ornament there—a bulb blown from St. Helen’s ash.

On Saturday, the region did a service project at Fort Vancouver. The park rangers explained that the Fort was established by the Hudson Bay Trading Company. It was never a fort to defend anything. One of the things they did was establish gardens where they grew vegetables and herbs. So we helped with restoring the gardens—there were 6-8 older ladies who were master gardeners. We had about 80 people in our group—6-8 went off to chop and haul wood for the lady who made bread every day. The rest of us were divided into a couple groups—one went down and started smoothing out piles of dirt that had been dumped into flower beds. The group I was with had the job of digging out herbs (and weeds), filling the beds with dirt and replanting the herbs. They had made some new concrete walkways and needed to fill the beds up to the walkways. They had about 15 yds of dirt that needed to be moved. Bob was one of the guys who shoveled dirt into wheelbarrows, then several guys would bring them (some actually running) to the beds where we would spread it out. We were only there for two hours, but one of the ladies said we did more than they could have done in a couple months! And, what made it even better is it was a beautiful day!

At lunch, they ran out of food—We said ‘what do you expect—you sent everyone outside to work hard—we came back starving’. For the banquet that evening—the host chapter had a Hawaiian luau. It was really good—the dessert was a coconut cream mousse on a macadamia nut crust.

We finished around 1 pm and our flight left at 12:40 am—so we had quite a bit of time. We drove over to Long Beach and walked along the beach for about an hour. The ocean is so beautiful. I could sit and watch the waves roll in and out for hours. It certainly makes me think of forever!

We stopped in Olympia on the way to the airport and found a restaurant that was recommended to us—the Oyster House. I had clam chowder and a seafood stew that had a tomato base and lots of clams, oysters, crab, halibut, salmon and mussels. It was good, but I think I would have rather had it just plain and not the tomato base—it made it pretty rich. Bob had the fish and chips.

We were both upgraded to first class and even got to sit by each other. But we slept through the service, so the only benefit we had was the bigger seats and the foot rest (which I love). We got into the cities at 5:45 am—had breakfast at the airport and then caught the flight home. We stopped at the grocery store and then headed for home.

This was a quick trip—we left on Friday and returned on Sunday/Monday. However, we ended up in three different states and got ourselves a voucher for our next trip. I was assigned to attend the Indiana Regional Convention which was held in Madison, IN. Which is a neat little town located right on the Ohio River. It’s midway between Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH—so we had our choice of airports. We ended up flying into the Cincinnati airport—which is actually located in Kentucky! We drove to Madison, found the college and our hotel and checked in.

The college is a brand new building that they just moved into in January. It has a beautiful rotunda with lots of glass. The theatre even smelled very new. I guess a lot of their money to build new campuses (their sister college at Lawrenceburg has a brand new building also) comes from gambling money. Ohio has allowed gambling on boats in the Ohio River—and have cut the deal where a percentage of their profits goes to education.

The host chapter had developed the theme “Note the Music: Note the Power” based around the Power Honors Study Topic. Everything had music as a theme. The opening session was pretty impressive with American Legion members as a color guard and a group called ‘Men of Praise’ singing the National Anthem. The group later performed following the meal. They were wonderful and had a really fun pianist/leader who was so enthusiastic—you couldn’t help but smile, just watching her! Following the formal sessions, there was a fun musical jeopardy game show type event. Many of the chapters came in costume and had fancy shaking sticks. I would have loved to have stayed, but we had gotten up very early and were beat—so we left around 10 pm. I guess it went until midnight.!

Saturday was a long day, starting with an advisor’s breakfast meeting, several general sessions and breakouts, and ending with a formal awards banquet. The banquet was held at a really nice restaurant where they had a wonderful buffet that included chefs carving prime rib, ham, and roast beef. They even had a wonderful dessert bar with persimmon cobbler, bread pudding, chocolate torte, and ice cream. Most everyone was formally dressed—with lots of women in long gowns. They really did it up nice!

On Sunday, there was a meeting with the newly elected officers and then we hit the road. Our flight didn’t leave until 7 pm, so we took the scenic drive right along the Ohio River. This area was an important trade route in the early 1800, so many of the towns like Madison had an ‘old town’ area right near the river. The photo above shows the 'old town' section of Madison, which is right on the Ohio River.

Further down the Ohio, we stopped so we could walk along a levee in Lawrenceburg that had historical markers which told of all the major floods and rebuilding that was done in the 1800s and early 1900 until dams and levees were built to control the flooding. The photo of the entrance to the levee looks a little different than what we saw, because there is a big new building, which is the Ivy Tech college in Lawrenceburg that was build with gambling money.

We stopped and ate at a neat little pizzeria in a small town. I had a ciabatti sandwich which they said was ‘heart healthy’ because the bread is steamed and then baked. It was really good—crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. It was filled with ham and lots of veggies. We eventually drove through Cincinnati (hence into Ohio) and back to the airport in Kentucky.

When we were ready to fly to Int’l Falls, they were looking for people to give up their seats, so we volunteered—and this time it worked! We ended up staying at a Holiday Inn Select—were eating supper at 10 pm and then went to bed. The next morning—it was up early to catch a 9 am flight (which didn’t end up going until 11 am) and back home again.

Staying over that one extra day, made it a short time at home, since we are leaving again on Thursday….but that’s another story.

We were experiencing the coldest weather we had had all winter, when it was time to leave for Oregon—so it felt pretty good to get going--especially when we had several days of absolutely gorgeous sunshiny days. The last time we were in Oregon—it rained every day.

We left on Thursday on the 6 am flight—which means we have to get up around 3 am. Then, since we were flying west (that equates to 1 am their time). We worked for a while and then dozed off. Around 4 pm—we decided to go driving and headed out to the Columbia Gorge—which is one of our favorite places. The waterfalls and river are always so beautiful. We drove on the scenic highway—which winds up and down some cliffs and goes very close to several major waterfalls. The largest waterfall is Multnomah and it is spectacular! It drops 620 feet and then has a smaller drop. There is a little bridge that goes over the falls between the two waterfalls which is .2 miles from the bottom—then a mile long path goes to the top of the falls. We had climbed it 20 some years ago when the kids were small and decided it was time to climb it again.

Bob and I took off for the top—it was a pretty good workout—we had to stop and catch our breaths several times. We hiked for about 45 minutes and it started to get dark. I’m always nervous about coming down—that’s actually harder on the knees and back than going up. So we decided to turn around (we were probably 3/4 of the way to the top) and head back down. It took us about 15 minutes to get back down. The lodge at the base of the falls was having a Valentine Day’s Special—they had candles and rose petals all along the stairs going up into the restaurant.

We had to pick up Phyl at the airport at 7 pm—so we drove to the airport and waited in the cell call lot. While we were sitting there—suddenly the car started shaking and there was a loud roar. We decided there must have been some high powered jets taking off right near us. Since Phyl hadn’t gotten anything to eat since she had left early in the morning, we went to a Burgerville. They have great burgers and some interesting salads—I had one called Rouge River Smokey Blue —it had spring mix greens, blue cheese, cranberries, grape tomatoes, and apples—it was really good. They also had a special chocolate hazelnut milk shake—yummy!

The next day, we worked for a while and then Bob and I drove to Multnomah Falls for another good workout and lunch. This time we made it all the way to the top—stopping a few times. The view from the top is spectacular—you can see the lodge, the river, the waterfalls, and lots of cliffs. We felt good that we were able to make it to the top—in about 50 minutes—we went a little faster than we had the day before.

After we got back down, we ate a late lunch at the lodge—I remember from last year having a wonderful salmon, fruit, cheese, and multi grain bread. They still had it on the menu—so I got it again this year. It was wonderful! Bob ordered a steak sandwich (well done). When it came and he cut into it—it was really rare. So he ended up sending it back. They brought out a whole new one.

The retreat started at 7 pm Friday evening with a reception—around 10 pm (midnight our time), we fizzled out and headed for bed. The retreat went all day on Saturday and then we went to a wonderful Mexican restaurant for supper—there were about 17 people that went together—we had a huge long table. Bob and I rode with one of the advisors and her mother. The rest of the group rode in the coordinator’s RV. After supper, we went to a theatre and saw a fun play called “The Curate Shakespeare As You Like It”. It was about a theatre company who were putting on ‘As You Like It”, but they only had seven actors and they all had to play several parts—and supposedly several of them were ‘crazy’ and schizophrenic from playing all the parts. The only problem is that I was so tired and felt my eyes close for ‘just a second or two’. The next thing I knew—the actors had different costumes on and the stage had different props.

Sunday had the retreat going until noon. Then we all went back to the Columbia Gorge—since Phyl had never seen the waterfalls. We walked up to the little bridge at Multnomah and then ate at the lodge—this time I had the red pepper humus and pita bread and goat cheese. It was really good too! We drove to Bridal Veil Falls and hiked down to it and then stopped at the Vista House—which had a wonderful view. It was so windy that we could hardly walk—as we were going up the steps—the wind blew us into the railing. After we came out of the house—the wind took the sun glasses right off Phyl’s head and blew them across the road.

Since we figured we still had some time before dark, we decided we might as well drive to see the ocean—it was about 70 miles from Portland, but we didn’t think about it being over winding roads—so it took us a little longer than we thought it would—we got to the beach about ½ hour before sun set—but we did get to see the sun set over the ocean—absolutely beautiful. We walked along the beach for a ways until it got pretty dark and then headed back to Portland.

We left early Monday morning—and had smooth flying all the way home.