Aunt Jean's 80th Birthday Party

Dan is lucky enough to still have two Aunts, both living in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Aunt Jean turned 80 years young in July, and her children decided to throw her a birthday party to celebrate the occasion. Hillman is 1088 miles from Fort Smith, but we figured, what the heck? May as well drive down for the big party and take advantage of the opportunity to see lots of Dan's family at the same time.

All 5 of Dan's siblings showed up (one brother actually lives in Fort Smith, the other sisters and brothers came from California and Illinois), as well as many cousins, second cousins, and cousin's once or twice removed (how the heck does that work, anyway?). There were about 100 people at the party, both family and friends of Aunt Jean's, and a very special guest showed up, the mayor of Fort Smith himself.

It's not everyday the mayor shows up to your birthday party, but it's not everyday you turn 80, either. Mayor C. Ray Baker presented Aunt Jean with 80 rose petals, which he sprinkled atop her head, and "A Special Birthday Proclamation" which proclaimed Aunt Jean's birthday and the day of her party as official "Jean Brannon Myers Days" in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

A fun time was had by all, and many reconnections were made between long lost family, friends, and loved ones.

Baby Niko

Do you believe in Serendipity? How about Synchronicity? I just have to believe that something like this was at work to bring us to Michigan this summer at the same time my daughter Mindy was going to be here to have her first child. When we decided last year to return to Hillman this year, Mindy had no plans of being in Michigan, and no plans to have a baby. But as fate or destiny or just dumb luck would have it, she and I ended up in a state 2200 miles away from Sacramento at the same time, which allowed me the great privilege of being here for the birth of Nikolai, my 6th grandchild, and 3rd grandson.

Baby Niko was born July 5th, and I was able to be at the hospital the whole time Mindy was in labor, up to, and following the birth. Milan, Niko's proud father, was by Mindy's side the whole time giving her much needed support. Niko's two grandmas were able to spend the next 3 weeks helping the family get settled into their new way of life, and I just want to say again how happy I was able to be a part of this wonderful experience.

Here are some pictures of little Niko.

Madison, Wisconsin

Here it is, the middle of August, and I realize I haven't made any updates to our blog since June. I was almost current after the last entry on The Badlands, but once we arrived at Thunder Bay in Hillman, Michigan, we slipped into the routine of working and golfing, and before I knew it, the blog had become very low on my list of things to do. So now I have to reach back to May to catch up. The last stop we made along our journey to Hillman was to the Madison, the capital of Wisconsin.

The Madison Capitol building is constructed of granite, nestled between Lake Monona and Lake Mendota, and is the only State Capitol ever built on an isthmus. Inside, the architecture, murals, stained glass, and paintings are striking in both size and content, encompassing 43 varieties of stone from around the world and boasting beautiful and unique hand-carved furniture. The interior colors are dominated by golden hues giving one the feeling of grandeur, warmth and richness.

Here are a few pictures from our Madison, Wisconsin, Capitol Tour.

Badlands National Park

Even though we were on somewhat of a schedule traveling from Washington to Michigan, we did allow ourselves enough time for a couple of unplanned side trips along the way. One that came up while we were in South Dakota was a brief stop at the Badlands National Park. I've never seen anything like this, and my first impression was this seemed like a landscape that belonged on another planet, or perhaps the setting for a movie like "The Lord of The Rings". Since that movie has already been made, maybe for an adaptation of Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series. It is stark, desolate, eerie, and other-worldly.

The park consists of nearly 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires, and is really impossible to describe. The history of the Badlands stretches back to the beginning of time, and the land is rich with fossil beds dating 23 to 35 million years old. The evolution of mammal species such as the horse, sheep, rhinoceros and pig can be studied in the Badlands formations. An array of extinct animals, ranging from very enormous to very small, once ranged through the area now included in Badlands National Park. Some lived in the subtropical forests that flourished after the retreat of the shallow inland seas, while others inhabited the savannahs and grasslands that came in the years afterward.

Hopefully you can get at least a glimpse into this place like no other with the attached pictures. Remember - click on them to enlarge for the full effect.

Pierre, South Dakota

After leaving Rapid City, we continued our Eastward trek, with a two day stop near Pierre, South Dakota to visit the state capitol. Much to our surprise and delight, we were literally the only visitors there on the day we took our tour. It happened to be Sunday, and Mother's Day, and not very pleasant weather, so perhaps all those things combined made this an unlikely day for crowds. Since we were the only ones there, we were given a lengthy and private tour of the building by the docent on duty that day.

The first thing we noticed inside the building was the similarities to the construction and architecture to the capitol building in Helena, Montana. The architect did indeed pattern his design after the state capitol in Helena, with one major difference. The floor of the capitol building in Pierre is made of terrazzo tile. The floor is said to have been laid by 66 Italian artists. To give these artists a chance to place their signatures in the building (without allowing them to actually sign their names to the floor), each is said to have been given a blue stone to place in the floor. Only 55 of these tiles have been found, however. It is thought that the remaining stones may have been placed in locations now covered by walls, doors, or carpeting.

Here are some pictures of the outside, interior, and tile floor of the capitol building in Pierre.

Mt. Rushmore

Located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a monumental granite sculpture by Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941), and represents the first 150 years of the history of the United States with 60-foot sculptures of the heads of former United States presidents George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). The entire memorial covers 1,278.45 acres and is 5,725 feet above sea level. The memorial attracts approximately two million people annually.

We reached Rapid City on May 4th, very excited to finally get a chance to visit Mt. Rushmore. Although I had been here with my family during a cross-country vacation when I was 15, I only had a vague recollection of the experience. This was to be Dan's first visit, and we were both looking forward to the experience. The weather was unseasonably cold, and we woke on the morning of May 5th to a light dusting of snow in our RV Park. As we drove up to the memorial, snow continued to fall, and we were wondering how this would impact our viewing.

When we arrived, it was quite cold and overcast; fog had started to roll in, and the faces of the presidents were sometimes obscured by the swirling mists and the moisture that had collected on their stone likenesses. We took a few pictures, toured the visitor center, and watched a short film on the history of the monument before deciding to leave and try again the next day.

We had much better luck when we returned on May 6th. The air was clear (although still cold, and now windy), but our view was unobscured and we were able to really appreciate the full impact of this masterpiece, trying to capture the feeling in about 50 or more pictures. I've included just a few of the very best for your viewing.

Devils Tower National Monument

After leaving Helena, our destination was Rapid City, South Dakota, to visit Mt. Rushmore. We planned to take two days to get there, as the mileage was a little long for a one day haul. On the second day, we only had a 4-hour trip on the schedule, so we decided to alter our route slightly and incorporate a trip to The Devils Tower National Monument, located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, standing 1,267 feet above the Belle Fourche River, 5,112 feet above sea level, and 867 feet from its base to the summit.

Devils Tower is made up of igneous rock, which is made directly from molten rock coming to the surface. Devil's Tower was a spire of molten rock that forced its way from deep inside the earth through the surface, or near to the surface. As time wore on, the sedimentary rock that surrounded the tower eroded, leaving Devil's Tower exposed. Sedimentary rock is much softer than igneous rock, thus it erodes faster. Devil's Tower was left standing tall when everything else had been blown or shifted away from it.

You may recognize the shape of Devils Tower from the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where the top of the tower was featured as the landing pad for the aliens. The monument is located in a 1347 acre park featuring more than seven miles of hiking trails and is home to birds such as hawks, eagles, vultures, falcons and mammals such as white-tailed deer and the black-tailed prairie dog. More than 5000 climbers from all over the world climb the tower every year.

Devils Tower is a sacred site of worship for many American Indians and is known as Mato Tipila by the Lakota, which means "Bear Lodge". As Dan and I walked the 1.3 mile trail that skirts around the tower, we saw many prayer bundles tied to the surrounding trees. There were instructions at the beginning of the trail asking hikers not to disturb the prayer bundles as they are considered physical symbolic representation of prayers and are part of religious ceremonies. It's easy to understand how this could be a holy place. I was filled with respect for this massive monolith, and was struck with awe and wonder just standing in the presence of something so wondrous and mysterious.

Helena, Montana

We left Washington on May 1st, giving ourselves about two weeks to meander back to Hillman, Michigan, with stops along the way to three more state capitals: Helena, Montana, Pierre, South Dakota, and Madison, Wisconsin. We arrived in Helena on May 2nd, and toured the capitol and the town on the 3rd.

From the outside, the capitol building gave no hint of the beauty that lay hidden inside. Of the traditional dome style, the old and weathered building loomed gray against the cloudy skies, and I remember thinking that it could use a little TLC, something to perk it up a bit. But the minute we walked through the doors, it was like being transformed into another world. The beauty of the architecture, the stained glass windows, the long barrel vault skylight, the murals depicting the history of Montana, and the intricate details found in every corner you looked made it hard to tear your eyes away from one spot to the next. I hope the pictures I have posted will speak for themselves. (Remember to click on the picture to enlarge it!)

I had always pronounced "Helena" as "HeLEEna" but as we soon found out, the correct pronunciation is actually "HELena", and when I looked this up on the web, I found an entertaining story of how this came about. Here is the clip from Wikipedia on the origin of the name, and how it is pronounced today.

"Helena was founded with the July 14, 1864 discovery of gold in a gulch off the Prickly Pear valley by the "Four Georgians", who were gold prospectors. The city's main street is named Last Chance Gulch and lies close to the winding path of the original gulch through the historic downtown district.

The original camp was named "Last Chance" by the Four Georgians. By fall, the population had grown to over 200 and the name "Last Chance" was viewed as too crass. On October 30, 1864, a group of at least seven men met to name the town, authorize the layout of the streets, and elect commissioners. The first suggestion was "Tomah," a word the committee thought had connections to the local Indian people of the area. Other nominations included Pumpkinville and Squashtown (as the meeting was held the day before Halloween). Other suggestions were to name the community after various Minnesota towns, such as Winona and Rochester. Finally, a Scotsman named John Summerville proposed "Helena," which he pronounced "hel-EE-na," "in honor of the heLEENa in Scott County, Minnesota..." This immediately caused an uproar from the former Confederates in the room who insisted upon the pronunciation HELena, after Helena, Arkansas, a town on the Mississippi River. While the name won, the pronunciation varied until approximately 1882 when the HELena pronunciation became dominant and has remained so to the present. Later tales of the naming of Helena claimed the name came variously from the Island of St. Helena, where Napoleon had been exiled, or was that of a miner's sweetheart."

Family Visit (Washington)

After leaving Idaho, we started moving towards Elma, Washington for a family visit. My Mom lives in Montesano in an assisted care facility, and one sister lives close by. My other three sisters live in California, and we had planned for all five sisters to be in the area at the same time to visit with our mom, and with each other. Dan and I arrived at the Elma RV Park on a Friday and got settled in for the weeklong stay.

My daughter and two granddaughters live in Seattle, about 90 miles from the RV Park, so they drove down on Sunday for a visit. We took the opportunity for a surprise visit with my mom, and she was delighted to see not only her daughter, but also her granddaughter, and two great granddaughters. We spent the afternoon catching up and working puzzles in the facilities activity room.

My three sisters from California arrived later that night, and on Monday we all got together for the first of five days of visiting, reminiscing, and getting together with our mother. It isn't often that the five of us have a chance to be together, and even less often as time goes by. We all felt like we grew closer over this visit, sharing various aspects of our lives with each other, and gaining a new appreciation for one another. Having the opportunity to visit with mom all together, for several days in a row was a special treat for all of us.

My niece and her family also live nearby, and we were lucky enough to have them come for a visit one evening as well. It was a fun filled night of food, laughter, and music and came to an end much too soon.

Here are some pictures of this very special family visit.