Photos and happenings from Tim. Mostly photos.
Madeline, Eileen and Tim visit Jeremy in Denver in April 2009. He’s living in a cute little (little !) bungalow in The Highlands, an interesting near West neighborhood undergoing intense gentrification.
Click here to see a photo gallery, which should appear in a separate browser tab.
The Goode family descended on our nation’s capitol to attend the retirement ceremony of Nathan Jones from the Naval Reserve after 38 years service. Much sightseeing was done by all. If you’re like me, you might have a hard time remembering exactly where you’d been and what you were looking at. This mapping aid could be just the thing.
http://www.visitingdc.com/map/washington-dc-tourist-map.htm
This high level map allows one to drill down to more and yet more detail in and around the National Mall.
On Saturday evening the Apitzes and G00des-of-Madison circumnavigated the Mall outside.
(click . . .)
Tour of Mount Vernon
The Apitzes and Goodes-of-Madison arrived at the tour of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home, via cruise boat along the Potomac. The day was cool and gray, with a major thunderstorm center known to be heading our way. The boat ride was pleasant altho there were not a lot of sights to see along the way.
Our self guided tour began at the river, a calm and appropriate beginning, much more laid back than the crush of humanity in the parking lots, which feed folks in through a visitor center (complete with the requisite trinkets and fast food) which housed a George Washington museum.
We strolled past various restored or recreated out-buildings, climbed a steep hill via a walkway through the woods, and came to the main living area. This complex consisted of GW’s home, a virtual small town of specialized huts for various craftsmen, slave quarters, a greenhouse, and more.
Tour of the Capitol. Click here.
Union Station. Click here.
Botanical garden. Click here.
Air and Space Museum. Click here.
War Memorials. Click here.
Kennedy Center. Click here.
Arlington. Click here.
Natural History Museum. Click here
Morocco Restaurant. Click here.
Last Day – Naval Memorial – Click here.
Drove out. Just your basic visit.
Boulder first. Walked around campus, east Pearl St.
Denver second. Hung out with Jeremy. Went up to Breckenridge, walked around Washington Park, hung out in down town Denver.
A very nice vacation, outside of Hayward WI on Lost Land Lake. In attendance, Dave and Nancy, Paula and Roger, Tim, Eileen, Madeline.
Photos are in one long stream, in the following order:
Cabin and Lake Scene, Namkagon Float, Kubb, Fish Fry, Evening at the Lake, and the Wilson Lodge down the road.
Photo Gallery can be seen here.
Eileen, Madeline and I drove our Rockwood popup all the way to Ft. DeSoto, Florida, for spring break. 1450 miles. We heard about this place from our LaCrosse buddy Bob Stuber. He’s been going there for years with the hippie contingent of Cadillac, MI (what there is of it). They invited us along. It was just the excuse I needed to buy a used popup trailer.
Our aging Toyota Sienna van pulled this 1,500 pound trailer “ok”. Fine on the flats, wheezy in the hills of Tennessee. It’s a long drive, it seemed to take forever. Once past Atlanta, the rodes were choked. That entire city seemed to empty out and head to Florida along with us.
But anyway, we loved it! Ft. DeSoto is a jewel of a County park, in Pinnelas County. It’s out on a spit of land in Tampa Bay with no development around it. There’s one large campground, and that’s it. The beaches are spectacular. The bike riding within the park is pretty good – not a lot of it, maybe 12 miles covering everything, but it’s either off road or with a good shoulder.
The water is protected, there’s a circular loop to be done with canoe or kayak.
Here’s a quick look at the campground. It’s tropical. The campground is divided into a “tent” side and an “Rv” side. The tent side allows popups. Its densely overgrown and the sites are narrow.
Here’s some of our fellow campers, with their rigs:
Molly and Madeline with an iPod
Raccoons run all over this island. They are weird creatures, thin and pale looking, creepy. They aren’t dangerous, but if you leave anything edible outside, they’re on it like a flash. They can open a cooler in their sleep, they’ll go in your tent for a candybar. I asked a ranger why they looked so odd, he said it was from severe inbreeding. It’s hard for them to get out to this island, and once they’re here, they only have each other. This doesn’t stop their population from getting into the many hundreds. The island would normally support a few dozen of them. The ranger told me that occasionally they have sharpshooters come in to clean them out.
Madeline thought the babies were cute, she took a few pictures of one in a tree.
One of the appeals of this area in the winter is the Pinellas County bike trail. The original section runs north and south on the western side of the county for 40 flat miles. (It has since been expanded). It goes through too many small towns to name, and except for these town sections, it’s totally off road. We put about 200 miles on our bikes, between riding in the park and this trail. The trail can’t be reached by bicycle from the park, too dense and urban. We drove to the trailhead.
Here’s some pictures of Clearwater, one of the towns on the trail.
Scenes of just hanging out at camp.
North Beach is the biggest and best beach in the Park, altho there are others. Much time was spent here. It was an easy pedal from the campgrounds.
In the last several days, people broke camp one by one and bid farewell. We were the last to leave.
I saw this unusual load on the road home.
