September travels

Coast to Coast and North to South

Pacific Coast Sept 1 in San Francisco; northern border Niagara Falls, Canada September 9, Atlantic Coast Plymouth, MA September 10 and Gulf Coast at Galveston, TX September 27

We began our car trip two days after we returned from California.  Our first goal was to get to Wauseon, Ohio for Barb's class reunion.  Most of the festivities were held at the Heritage Inn in Archbold, part of the Sauder Enterprise -- you may see Sauder furniture in high end stores like Wal-Mart
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We also took some time to visit friends and places around Wauseon.

Phil at Fulton County Museum where we saw artifacts from my grandparents;; visiting  Jean and Dave in assisted living pictured with Jean's daughter-in-law, Bev; Barb's parents' grave in Wauseon

We headed off to Massachusetts but missed a turn in New York State and decided to detour to Niagara Falls, Canada.  We had a great time.  We saw Jay Cochrane tightrope walk from the Skylon Tower to the Hilton Hotel; and saw the evening colored light show.  We had a fantastic pizza at Johnny Peppers -- watching the owner roll the dough and bake the pizza in the wood fired kiln. In the morning we enjoyed walking through the commercial section of town and down to the lovely gardens and falls view.

Niagara Falls, Canada

We then went to Carver, MA where we had a grand visit with Phil's sister Belle.  We did lots of local exploring including a drive down to Cape Cod to Falmouth and Woods Hole.  We learned there that Paul Revere had cast the bell in the church on the Falmouth green and that Katharine Lee Bates who wrote America the Beautiful was born in Falmouth. We walked a lot in Myles Standish Forest, along the shore in Plymouth and around Carver. We ate a lot!  We had pizza from our favorite place Georgio's in Carver together with Steve and Gay.  Gay is a nurse and took everyone's blood pressure!  Crazy family!  We drove around looking at many places Phil and Belle had lived as children.

        The last evening we had a lobster cookout in Belle's backyard.

From Massachusetts we headed south for a few days at our cabin in Blue Ridge.  We did some hiking, resting, and geocachine plus Barb had 3 phone meetings and three paper reviews!  We headed to Decatur to celebrate our granddaughter Camille's birthday before going back to Texas.


The final leg of our trip was to Houston where Phil had some medical appointments at the Baylor College of Medicine.  A Trader Joe's had just opened not far from our hotel, so we had great food in our extended stay hotel room thanks to TJ.  We used the trip as an excuse to explore places on Galveston Island that we had not been to before. Before heading back home, we took a guided tour of Ima Hogg's Houston Bayou Bend mansion and gardens .  We were the only two on the tour and the guide, a chemistry/art history major at Rice was fantastic.

Galveston State Park Beach

Home at Last!!!!