Celebrating Tanya’s birthday & health

Wednesday was Tanya’s birthday and since she has been feeling much better over that past couple of months, combined with the fact that she has been working pretty hard lately, we decided to take a couple days off to celebrate her birthday. We started off on Wednesday at Matsuyama Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar and had a couple friends join us. Anyone that has been following this blog for a while knows that we are huge fans of Matsuyama Sushi, so that was a good start to the day. We then decided to go out to Palos Verdes to see …

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A ride on the Southwest Chief

Buddy and I needed to come back to Indiana for a while, so we decided to take Amtrak’s Southwest Chief from Los Angeles to Chicago. I have ridden Amtrak from Los Angeles to San Diego, and a few times in the Netherlands, but this was definitely the longest train ride I had ever taken. I was looking forward to the adventure since I have driven between CA and IN numerous times in the last few years. I figured that the train would take us through some scenery I had not seen yet and it would provide for some excellent photo …

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Asperatus and storm clouds

The other day, someone made a comment about a photo I had posted on Google+. It was of a cloud formation that I had seen in North Dakota or Montana. They informed me that the photo was of the newly named Asperatus variety. She sent me a link to a Youtube video and a website that is all about cloud appreciation. I was surprised that the clouds were something new because I saw them all across the country when I was following storms. I soon recognized that when I saw them, some very foul weather was to follow. I noticed …

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Yellowstone National Park

Shortly after leaving Cody and the Buffalo Bill Dam we entered Yellowstone National Park’s East Entrance. I had not visited Yellowstone since I was a youngster, maybe 45 years ago. Since Yellowstone is extremely large and we only had one day to see as much as we could, we took the long way around the park. From the east entrance we drove alongside Yellowstone Lake to the Fishing Bridge junction. After a nice lunch we took Grand Loop Road to Canyon Village, across to Madison then dropped down to Old Faithful and eventually out the south entrance leading to the …

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Cody and the Buffalo Bill Dam

We ended day four and began day five in Cody, WY. On the way to the Cody Rodeo the night before, we noticed what looked like an old frontier town in the fields between Cody and Stampede Park. We decided to check it out the next morning. It turned out being the Old Trail Town which was the original townsite of Cody, which was named after William F. (“Buffalo Bill”) Cody. If you are into Old West artifacts, you will definitely appreciate a stop by Old Trail Town. After leaving the city limits and heading into the mountains we came …

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Photos from the Beartooth Mountains and Chief Joseph Scenic Highway

After leaving Red Lodge we headed on towards the Beartooth Mountains. Since I had not been driving and had never visited this part of the country, I believed my cousin when he told me we were in the Tetons. It wasn’t until that night, when I brought out a map that I realized where we really were. Shortly after crossing the border into Wyoming we found ourselves on the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway. There was no question that as far as scenery was concerned, our trip had just been bumped up a couple levels. A viewing tip; try using the …

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Little Big Horn and Red Lodge Ales

Day four of our journey began in Miles City and a beautiful morning. The storm clouds looked fantastic and made for great photos. As we headed across on I-94 I spotted a sign for the Little Big Horn battleground, so we made our first detour of the day. The signs were not very accurate, but due to another u-turn we soon came upon it. One thing my cousin and I both noticed was how solemn people seemed to be there. As we came into Billings my cousin asked if I had even been inside a Cabela’s Sporting Goods store. As …

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Photos from Arkansas and the Ozarks

Thursday, we woke up somewhere around Oklahoma City. This was day five of our trip and I was contemplating washing the car to attract some rain. I watched the weather channel and their storm chaser was having the same luck as I, so I could not feel too bad. I had to make a decision, go north into Kansas or go northeast into Arkansas and Missouri. The forecast looked a little more promising east but one thing I learned was that they are not very good at forecasting them more than an hour or so ahead of time. We headed …

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Photos from a day in New Mexico

These photos were taken at Bayard, Hurley, City of Rocks, Las Cruces, White Sands, Roswell and Portales, NM. They were having lots of fires in the forest at the border, and the heavy wind was mixing the smoke and sand so that visibility was terrible throughout most of the state. After leaving AZ we visited Bayard and Hurley, then stumbled up the City of Rocks. It was a very cool place as it is surrounded bu flat desert then the city of rocks pops up. We stopped for lunch in Las Cruces, which was great. As we headed to Roswell, …

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Photos from the Painted Desert

After leaving the meteor crater we headed towards the Painted Desert. The Painted Desert is the entry to Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park. Since the day was drawing to a close and I have visited several petrified forests in the past, I decided that we would skip this one and just enjoy the beauty of the Painted Desert. I have seen it from the opposite side, but it was nowhere near as nice as this. After photographing the Painted Desert we headed on to Springerville, where we enjoyed a great meal at the Safire Restaurant & Lounge. They make most …

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