Finally

Okay I'm finally sitting down at the keyboard.  My last travel post was when we went to Hawaii.  After that it was time for me to retire(12/28/2011).  We moved to Idaho Falls and within a couple of days I was asked to return to the fire department for a few months.  Reluctantly I agreed and returned to the desert.  Our house hadn't closed yet so I was able to stay in it.  I worked at both the Riverside and Palm Desert office and continued to train two assistant fire marshals, that in my opinion didn't really need any additional training.  While I was in the desert I got the flu, mostly because I kept putting off getting my flu shot.  I kept working but then got another bug and thought I was going to die, I was very, very sick for several days and couldn't keep anything down including water.  Sylvia was in Idaho which was a good thing.  I received a great deal from our travel agent on another Alaska cruise.  It was so good that Laura and her family went also.  So I told the Fire Chief that when I left for the cruise in April I wouldn't be back.

The cruise, what a great time it was our first one that was a round trip from Seattle.  We had adjoining cabins with Ben, Laura and family.  The staff opened the door between our balcony's so the kids could run back and forth.  We had fixed dining which in the overall scheme of things was okay, although the kids didn't care for the formality of it all.  Ben and Laura did the specialty restaurants a couple of times and had a good time.  One of our best meals was when Laura ordered room service as we were cruising in Tracy Arm, she ordered hot chocolate, hot soups and sandwiches for everyone and we stayed on the balcony.  Room service is, of course free.

As we went up Tracy Arm they announced that there was so much ice the captain wouldn't take the ship any closer but then we noticed that we were breaking through thick ice and he kept going.  It was great we had never done anything like that before.  Chucks of ice were coming up colored with paint from the ship on them.

In Juneau Ben and I went on a gold mine trip while Sylvia and Laura took the kids to the top of the mountain on the tram.  In Ketchican we walked around the town and in Sitka we went to the raptor center and walked around town.  The whole trip was lots of fun.

When we got back to Idaho we decided we should take a trip to Yellowstone for the day.  We saw Buffalo and Elk however we wanted to walk the geyser loop at Old Faithful the Park Service because of bear activity.

We then decided to take a trip to Branson Missouri, we had picked up a time share offer for a two night stay at the Bass Pro shop resort on Table rock lake.  So we started for Missouri, we discovered along the way the the state flower of Nebraska must be the orange cone.  I don't think we traveled more than a couple of miles without  having one of the lanes closed on the freeway through the entirety of the state.  We also ate at a place that was recommended by the clerk at the hotel it was called Runga, we don't recommend it, it was pretty bad.  You can check my review and others on Yelp.  When we got to Missouri we went to Lamberts restaurant, I do recommend it, we enjoyed it so much we went again when we left.  It is had to believe but Sylvia had a hog jowl sandwich and loved it.  we checked into the resort, which is beautiful by the way set up our reservation for the tour and then called Kay.  We did the tour, said no thanks got out $150.00 in Bass Pro gift cards and then went to visit Kay.

After spending a couple of days in Branson we took off and headed to Nauvoo and Carthage to visit some church history.  Oh we also stopped at Lamberts again.  Nauvoo and Carthage were great visits, most of you follow my FB posts.   Oh, I almost forgot we were in Branson we signed up for another timeshare presentation, we went to it on our way out of town said no thanks and received $100.00 visa card for our trouble.  Onward we got back home and I found a great deal for us to stay at  Marriott summit watch in Park City the week in a two bedroom was only $59.00, that was for the entire week so off we went to Park City.  While there we started our paperwork for a Church Service mission.  Okay this is the first installment, I'm sure I left out a lot of stuff but its my own fault for not doing this on a regular basis.  I'm going to put in the summer mission and then try to start updating on a regular basis.  As I type I remember I forgot that we went to Karls in Portland twice, Lauras at least twice, The desert and Katrinas at least once and Kims I can't remember how many times.  So as I said once before we're not actually home a lot.