Stopped traveling-for a while

Well- Our trip west is over, and we are camped in Yorkville Illinois. We came back east to help our son and daughter-in-law build a deck on their house. It's a lot like work, digging 17 post holes, filling them with concrete, setting support posts, and then a beam on top. Thats where we are now. On Wednesday, we hope to finish the beams, and joists, so he can get it inspected before deck boards go on. It's been great fun working with our son, and we are both learning lots as we go. He has all the plans, and we both have enough experience to put it all together. Melody got to play with our grandkids over the weekend, as their parents went to the Nascar race in Joliet. We shortened our trip west, but it has been well worth the effort helping our kids. We have pictures, but the camera is at Chris' house. We'll keep you in suspense as to what it looks like. Sunday we are off to Indianapolis for work on our new home, and see our grandkids again. We can't get enough of them.

More later------Ken & Melody

This is one of the reasons Melody agrees to ride on the motorcycle. We found this store, that she had heard of, and had to stop. Yes, we made a purchase.



















We had a great week, of sightseeing and riding our bike. We spent time in Colorado, riding north from Denver, to Estes Paek and the Rocky Mountain National Park. We then headed north to Wyoming, and rode in the Big Horn National Park. This picture was typical of the roads, a motorcycle riders delight, curves, hills, and lots of beauty.







































We then found a stream, with a parking lot beside it. We had taken some cheese & crackers along for a snack. we stepped out onto a big rock in the middle of the stream, and layed out our blanket. What a great place to sit, and lay, and relax------------------

















Then we saw more of nature than we wanted to, so we loaded back on the bike, and headed down the road. The beauty we saw was spectacular, and the sky was brilliant blue.

FILLING IN THE BLANKS

Ken has done the last few blogs (and a nice job he is doing too!) but I wanted to say a few things too. He put the picture of the church on a recent blog but the top of the steeple didn't show up too good so I cropped it. Is this not a great steeple top? This is in Port Gibson, MS. They understand the point of having a steeple!










This is outside of Port Gibson and just took my breath away. This is the Windsor Ruins. This house was built in 1861 on part of the 21,000 (!) acres owned by this family. The owner died shortly after it was completed. His wife and children continued to live there and almost lost everything during the Civil War but retained the house. In 1880 the family was having a large party. It is said that someone smoking set fire to the house and it was completely burned. What is left today are the supports and they are huge. This was a 3 floor structure with the basement on the first floor. Just to give you some perspective we had a picture taken with us in it.


The first floor must have been 10 feet tall with the other two floors even taller. It is amazing that these ruins do not have graffiti on them and that the county continues to mow. The ruins sit about 5-6 miles out of town and there is NOTHING on the road out there. No homes, nothing. I think I read that there were 23 rooms originally but there are no pictures from when the house was whole. Rather sad. The wrought iron steps that originally graced the front of the house were donated to the college in town and are in use today. I love this stuff!