I’ve spent yesterday and all of today at the CIO100 Symposium — an event sponsored by CIO Magazine. CIO stands for Chief Information Officer who is usually the person at the head of all the information technology and systems within a company. CIO goes along with the CEO (Chief Executive Officer), COO (Chief Operating Officer), CFO (Chief Financial Officer) and CTO (Chief Technology Officer). The several hundred attendees are all senior information technology people from across the company. Right now, I’m sitting at a table with the senior IT person from the CIA for instance. The symposium has been pretty interesting. I’m here sponsored by RedHat and am able to take the time because the symposium is in Colorado Springs at the Broadmoor, a 5-star hotel and resort on the southwest part of the city. The symposium has several objectives, including honoring the top 100 CIO’s as selected by the CIO Magazine, providing a forum for best practices to be discussed and presented by these honored CIO’s and by experts, and a forum for selected vendors who (at a significant price), have good access for hawking their wares to the senior IT executives in attendance.

I’ve found the symposium to be quite interesting. The speakers have been good and the topics quite pertinent. Even more interesting has been the opportunity to meet other people who are wrestling with the same kinds of problems I’m working with. There has been a lot of opportunity to meet the other attendees and visit with them. I’ve been thinking about trying to get something like this going in Colorado Springs with some kind of a monthly meeting of senior IT executives in the city. I think that’ll be part of my activity during the next couple of months.

I talked today at lunch with the group putting on this event: CXO Media. The ‘x’ in their name is kind of like the algebraic X — the variable in the name. They publish two magazines, CIO Magazine and CSO Magazine (Chief Security Office). Perhaps other X’s will become part of their publishing stable in the future. He said that while the Broadmoor is a wonderful facility, there are some serious issues. For instance:

• There aren’t many places from which someone can fly directly into Colorado Springs. So, the attendees have to make at least one plane change to get here and the last leg is usually on a little airplane and some folks aren’t all that happy about that.
• The hotel isn’t very well wired. High-speed access to the internet is limited and expensive to deploy for the conference. It’s impossible to provide wireless access for attendees. The hotel is right on the edge of Sprint’s digital network. People staying in the southwest half of the hotel are on a roaming cellular network.
• The hotel isn’t very close to anything else in Colorado Springs, easy public transportation from the hotel to other places of interest is difficult. So, spouses and significant others attending the symposium complain about what is available for them to do during the day while the conference is proceeding.

Sounds to me that the city and the hotel need to get this feedback as well, so I’m intending to pass it along. Meanwhile, we’ve just finished a session on the new Sarbannes-Oxley Act and our compliance responsibilities.

I was in the middle of writing this post a few minutes ago, needed to check something else, and accidentally closed my web browser. So all the absolutely wonderful prose, well written and succulent, is gone. I get to do it all over again!

I am headed home to Colorado Springs later this afternoon. It’s going to be good to be back home. I’ve been in California since August 3rd (11 days) which is way too long. Actually the real issues are where to eat and what to do at night and on the weekends. Last Saturday I slept in and then went to the Oakland Temple for the afternoon where I did two endowment sessions and a sealing session. On Sunday I went to church in the morning and then took a drive up into the hills on Sunday afternoon.

Church was interesting. I arrived at the building, which is quite near the hotel, a little before 9 a.m. to find that meetings didn’t start until 9:45 a.m. There are two English-speaking Wards, two Spanish-speaking Branches, and a Vietnamese-speaking Branch meeting in the building. The 9:45 meeting time is to accomodate the need for classrooms in the building. The Ward I attended met in the Cultural Hall for their Sacrament meeting while a Spanish-speaking branch was meeting in the Chapel. Must be an interesting Stake issue dealing with all the languages!

There aren’t many places to eat dinner, particularly when I’m by myself. The tendency is to go through McDonald’s drive through…. I’ve eaten at the Macaroni Grill, Matsuyamas, Fujisan Sushi, Hometown Buffet, and a couple of times at Applebies. That’s pretty much the available places, other than McDonald’s and Taco Bell. I’m right ready to get home for some of Nina’s home cooking.

It has been good to meet with my folks out here. Face-to-face is occasionally very valuable. This is the first trip here since February. I’ll probably make trips back out:

Sept 8-12

Sept 29-Oct 3

Oct 27-31

Nov 17-21

Dec 8-12

I’ll also be making a trip to Dell in Dallas, Texas in early October and may make a trip to Phoenix to visit a BlueStar Data Center. With all of these trips, I should get enough segments in to at least maintain Elite status for another year on United. I like the ability to get priority boarding and access to the seats near the front of the plane. So, it’s now time to shut everything down and head to the airport. I’m outta here!

I’ve been in San Francisco for the past several days attending the LinuxWorld conference. Other posts to this journal have talked about the conference itself. This time I’d like to log my impressions of the area in San Francisco where I’ve been staying. I’ve been at the Argent Hotel on 3rd Street, a block away from the Moscone Center where the conference was being held. The hotel is just a half block from Market Street, one of the main streets in downtown San Francisco. My room was on the 26th floor with a great view towards the northeast.

1. There are a lot of tall buildings in downtown San Francisco. They must do a very good job of shielding from the wind! The past couple of days the clouds have been blowing from west to east in the sky and clipping along at 30-40 miles per hour, yet down at street level there’s just a light and variable breeze. The flags on top of the tall buildings are standing straight out, stiff in the wind, and the flags on the shorter buildings are just occasionally flapping in the breeze. It was so interesting, I had to figure out how to make my digital camera take a movie so I could catch some of the cloud action (the resulting file is about 4 megabytes in size, so I won’t post it).

2. This morning there was some coastal fog — nothing downtown but clear skies, however it was quite humid outside. With the heavier air and no breeze, the air in San Francisco doesn’t smell very good. There’s a lot of diesel and automobile exhaust fumes in the air. I guess you get used to the smell, but I found it to be rather foul this morning. Further, the steam coming up from grates in the sidewalks smells terrible! Whatever is being exhausted has a bad odor to it and I’ve quickly learned to walk around these grates rather than over them. Each one smells different. I have wondered at how many ways "bad" can smell!

3. All of the taxis in San Francisco are American brand cars, mostly Fords. None of them are so-called foreign brands, such as Toyota. The brand actually has little to do with where the car is manufactured. Most of the Toyotas driven in the U.S. are built in Ohio, and Toyota even exports cars back to Japan from the U.S. While I was at dinner one evening, sitting out on the sidewalk part of the restaurant (eating some very delicious Italian food), I noticed an Oldsmobile parked across the street. It was the only American-brand car visible. Now, I didn’t count minivans or SUV’s, which are mostly American-brand vehicles. Nor did I count pickup trucks, where Ford and Chevrolet seem to dominate — except for very small pickups where Toyota seems to have the significant edge. So counting just regular two- and four-door sedans, over the course of a half-hour, around 90% of the vehicles were foreign-branded cars. Of those that were American-branded cars, they were overwhelmingly taxi cabs. Why do all the taxis drive Fords? It’s a mystery, since most of the drivers are not white Anglo-Saxon people!

4. Sony has quite a facility in the middle of the Moscone Convention Center called The Metreon. This building has several restaurants (none of them chains or franchises) along with sections dedicated to different classes of Sony products. All of the products are out and available for people to touch, play with, and try out. The sales people aren’t pushy and seem to know their products. Sony products are generally quality products as well as pricey products. While I’ve no idea how well this particular store is doing, it was always packed with people, particularly the PlayStation area. There must have been more than 50 PlayStations setup with different games. There was time limit set and at the end of the time, the user had to give up the controller to someone else. Incredibly popular place. I’ve known that the gaming industry is larger than the movie business but this PlayStation area was a graphic example.

5. A sign on the walkway alongside Sony’s Metreon Center says "Live in your world, Play in ours." That motto certainly applies to San Francisco! One evening I asked the Concierge about restaurants in the area. In response to his question about what kind of food I was interested in, I told him I was looking for something that was a reasonably priced, normal American food restaurant. He told me, "… there is nothing normal in San Francisco." I’m sure he knows how right he really is. There are a lot of people in San Francisco living in a different world than I’m living in! Some of them sit along the street with a cup held out for small change contributions. As I was walking down Market Street towards Nordstroms, a young fellow was dancing down the sidewalk towards me. As he got closer, I could hear that he was singing (and not too badly, either) as he danced along the sidewalk. My first impression was that he was spaced out on something and that may well be the case. At any rate, he was definitely living in a world different than the one I am living in. As darkness falls, all of the street vendors appear setting up their tables to hawk their wares. Many are selling "normal" stuff (remember, is anything normal in San Francisco?) but there are quite a few folks selling some very esoteric things. Near the cable-car station is a walkway underneath Market Street leading to the subway as well as the shopping center on the other side of the street. I watched a fellow set up a massage chair (the kind that you sit astraddle and has a pillow area for your head). He was a very strange looking fellow and I wondered how many people would stop and pay him for a massage. Very quickly a lady came along, talked with him, sat down on the chair and put her head down. The fellow reached out, with his hands over her head, but without touching her at all, began chanting. That went on for several minutes and he stood back. She got up, gave him some money, and walked away. Within a couple of minutes, someone else sat down. The same ritual was replayed. It was quite astounding to watch how many people were interested in this transcendental experience (see the picture and brief writeup in an earlier post)!

6. I’m sure there are lot of very pretty girls / women in San Francisco (and I’m sure there are many handsome fellows…). However, even in the early part of August, the temperature never got above 75 degrees (I believe it was Mark Twain who said that the coldest winter he ever spent was one summer in San Francisco), so everyone wears sweaters, shawls, and jackets! It’s quite unlike the south bay area! If you live in San Francisco, you have to own and have available a winter wardrobe year around. This morning walking down Market Street I was struck by how many people were talking on cell phones as they were walking. It was about 8 a.m., most of the folks walking were on their way to work somewhere, and a large percentage of them were talking to someone on their cell phone. Perhaps this is a morning phenomenon??? It didn’t stand out last night like it did this morning.

7. At least on the south side of Market Street, all of the interesting stores are on the numbered streets, that is, the streets going north and south. The named streets seem to be mostly places under construction. Building is happening all over the area. They don’t seem to be big buildings, but things in the ten to twenty story type buildings. With all of the variety and diversity in San Francisco, I expect to find interesting stores. My favorite store on this trip was the Rand McNally store on 2nd and Market. The store is full of maps, globes, software, travel books, and little travel things like locks and intrusion detection devices and such. I only bought a couple of small items as I’ve already bought too many books at LinuxWorld. I’ve got enough weight to take with me as it is.

8. Every time I visit a big city, I notice how many and how often sirens are blaring. The fire station was not far from my hotel and those guys get quite a workout on their shift. The hook and ladder truck seems to be rarely in it’s garaged space! There weren’t as many police sirens here as I hear in New York, but there are always fire engines going somewhere in the area where I spent my time. It is so common that people seem to know how to get out of the way at intersections where the traffic is piled up waiting for the light to change. I think some folks even relish having the fire engine coming so they have an excuse to run the light!

This has been an interesting trip. I didn’t get over the other side of the hill to any of the area around Fisherman’s Wharf, where all the tourists congregate. I didn’t ride the cable car, I didn’t do anything associated with chocolate. In short, this was pretty much a business trip and well worth the time. Outside of the conference, San Francisco itself was quite entertaining.

I’m tired. There’s so much to do and see here at the conference that I’ve worn myself out — and it’s only day 2! I’ve generally concentrated on the conference sessions and have been well rewarded. The amount of walking, however, is phenomenal. I can’t count how many times I’ve walked the passway underneath the street between Moscone Center North and Moscone Center South. Right now I’m in a key note speach by the Executive VP of IBM’s e-Business Division. His talk is very good with a lot of content and not necessarily hawking IBM’s products. Last night we ended with the CEO of RedHat giving his talk, which was really a challenge to the commmunity to step up the innovation and integration of products in the OpenSource arena. I’ve attended sessions on LDAP and Spam detection as well as discussions on various OpenSource projects. That combined with the show floor, where I haven’t spend nearly enough time, and I’m tired, but excited. I’d like to get home and do something with the things I’ve learned. It’ll just be a matter of getting enough time to do everything I want to do.

San Francisco is quite a town. I took a very long walk on Monday evening — down Market Street to the Embarcaderro, then up California Street (which is definitely UP) to China Town where I did a little shopping. I then walked down to Union Square, and then west to the Trolley station. That’s where this picture was taken. I arrived as a street vendors were starting to setup their stands and hawking their wares. This guy set up a massage chair, but wasn’t offering a massage, but rather some kind of a spiritual experience. The fellow in the bright baseball cap was hawking the services. Meanwhile, the bearded guy stands behind the customer, hands hovering over the customer’s head, chanting something in a different language. I took the picture up at street level (this setup was in the passway under Market Street going into the shopping center across the street). I wasn’t about to get any closer to the action! Certainly are some interested (and very strange) people in San Francisco!

Greetings from San Francisco. Rather than taking a Linux Cruise this year, I’ve decided to attend LinuxWorld for the first time. In past years, this conference was absolutely huge — today it is much more realistic in size and hype. The conference got underway this morning, but was preceeded by some labs and tutorials yesterday. So I took advantage of that opportunity to attend a Samba class in preparation for Samba 3.0 being released. It was very interesting. Jerry Carter, who has perhaps one of the better jobs in the world, lead the tutorial and instruction. He’s a fellow who really knows how to work in front of an audience and never needs to be reminded to repeat the question.

I’m sitting in the first keynote speach, featuring HP. He’s doing quite a job of touting HP’s capabilities. Several other folks will have the opportunity to do the same for their companies and products during the week. I’ll attend most of those just to see what they think is happening in the Linux world.

For my part, I’m interested in the ability to deploy some fabulous functionality at a very low cost. I really want to significantly upgrade my home capability (perhaps the connection as well as the wireless broadband has become more and more flakey) and put in a good Family History application (which I’ll also need to build). This will require some additional computers and building at least one rack to house the systems. Having the computers underneath the desk has worked, but heat is a problem. I’ve put a fan under the desk to move air around and keep the boxes cooler than they were before. Getting the systems out from under the desk and into the open air will help with the cooling significantly. I still may need a fan, however. It has been very hot in Colorado Springs the past several days and I’m sure the processors suffered as a result.

Finally, I’ve got to find the time to do all of this. I’ve just gotten a new Church calling which will take a huge amount of time. I don’t want to give up the Temple, but I may need to reduce my committment up there. Where does all the time go? Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the conference and not having to worry about time, at least for right now….

In 1998 Nina and I took a vacation to Bangkok, Thailand. We had a delightful time and thoroughly enjoyed the country and people. When we visited the National Museum in Bangkok, we were privileged to have as a tour guide an American woman who was in Thailand accompanying her husband who was an oil company executive. She volunteered at the museum as a docent tour guide and was very knowledegable about Thai Buddhist Temples and the artwork to be found in these temples.

We learned that the type on Buddhism practiced in Thailand, Theravata Buddhism, was more conservative than that practiced in Japan:

… there are four major forms of Buddhism which seek to reach the goal of Nirvana through various routes. The Theravata Buddhist seeks to take responsibilty in his life by inculcating habits of disciplined simplicity. This would involve simple rituals, meditation, and moderate asceticism. The Mahayana Buddhist meditates under the direction of a disciplined teacher, who in his own wisdom and achievement is able to guide the student in therapy wisely and with discretion towards enlightenment. The Amitushu and Zen Buddhist also submits to a teacher, who guides him on the path to satori through overcoming the enemy of words and concepts which confirm and foster the illusion of self. A Zen teacher might supply a koan, a self-contradictory or illogical statement, to help the student along this path. Tibetan Buddhists often seek more immediate and sudden enlightenment through visualization, the use of mantras (repeated words or phrases that accompany meditation), or the art of intricate mandalas (see wywy.essortment.com/buddhismhistory_reyf.htm).

A characteristic of the Theravata Buddhists are the colorful and ornate temples found throughout Thailand. Adorning the walls of every temple in Thailand are a series of panels with paintings depicting the life of Sidhartha Guatema, the man who became Buddha. This is an fairly poor picture of four of these panels on a temple near the bridge over the Kwai River (it was taken with my first digital camera). These pictures are essentially scriptures for the Theravata Buddhist. Each panel will have several images, all symbolic of Buddha’s life and teachings. Each panel has one major, overriding picture. That scene will have red jagged lines over the top of it. In these panels, the jagged lines are all parts of rooftops. The panels are not necessarily in order. Inscriptions below the panels helps to guide those who can read to the order in which the panels are to be considered. Buddhist priests teach from these panels to help folks in their search for enlightenment.

As we visited Church History sites in Kirtland and Winter Quarters a couple of weeks ago, my visits to these Thai Buddhist temples came to mind. In both places, the tour started with a very new video presentation. These were wonderfully done with excellent photography and material. I was disturbed, however, that we in the Church are indeed progressing from Reality to Legend and perhaps boardering on Myth. These video presentations used actors and props to depict scenes from the 1830’s and 1840’s as the Church was driven first out of Kirtland, then out of Missouri, and finally out of Nauvoo, Illinois. The acting was good, in fact, too good. People were depicted as smiling all the time and were happy, even in the most dire of circumstances. The clothes were new, clean, well kept, and plentiful. A missionary leaves carrying three brand new, nicely tooled leather pouches, well outfitted with warm clothes, new boots, and more than sufficient clothing. The snow was only a couple of inches deep and melting quickly. The oxen were well trained and responded properly to every command. What was knee-deep mud for forty or fifty miles in Iowa was depicted as small puddles that splashed when the iron-clad wagon wheels went through them. I had the feeling that those early saints would not be all that pleased with how their enormously difficult circumstances were portrayed. They in fact struggled mightily (and with enormous faith) in their extreme poverty, through epidemic illnesses, and murderous persecution.

If I were to tell a Thai Buddhist that the true story of Sidhartha Guatema has evolved from Reality to Legend to a Myth of heroic proportions, they would consider me to be a heretic. To them, the idea that Sidhartha’s mother was walking across India while she was pregnant and when it came time for delivery, she held onto to a tree branch and Sidhartha issued from her side, able to walk and talk is truth and nothing but the truth. One of the panels (and I unfortunately don’t have a picture, even a poor one) depicts the scene. There was no labor, no pain, no blood or water, no incision, just one moment pregnant and the next conversing with a newborn son. It would be interesting to see what this story has evolved into in another hundred years or so.

I would hope that we can avoid this slippery slope. Perhaps depicting life as it really was is too depressing, too graphic, and would drive people away. But, perhaps not. It would certainly be better than making the story into a heroic myth which would cause any thinking person to question the story and all the doctrine associated with it. Meanwhile, I’m not terribly interested in sitting through another one of these visitor center video presentations.

On the other hand, visiting Kirtland and Winter Quarters and touring the facilities and museums is absolutely worthwhile. The material, exhibits, restored photographs, and models are delightful and very educational. I didn’t know much about the ashery until this visit. I thought it was just a soap making facility and learned that it was a major money-making venture, paying much of the cost of building the Kirtland Temple. The information about Winter Quarters and then Kanesville and Council Bluffs was outstanding and I learned a lot. I could have easily spent more time there. We’ll be back, but I’ll be skipping the videos. I’d much rather become better acquainted with the reality rather than the legend.

We pulled into the drive on Tuesday afternoon a little after 4:30 p.m. It was good to be home! However, it was Dang Hot in Colorado Springs. Fortunately, a storm blew in shortly after we arrived cooling things off somewhat. Wednesday and Thursday were more of the same hot temperatures. It is right now 99 degrees, down from a high of 101. The only good news is that the humidity is only 16%. Anything much higher would turn us from roasting into being broiled.

The server is back up and running. The UPS power supply had failed. Consequently, even if I had remote access, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything about the problem. I’m going to look for options that would continue to provide city power when the battery UPS fails like this one did.

On Wednesday I hauled the trailer to several places to get estimates for the repair. One place estimated $1400 to fix the front of the trailer. The place where we bought the trailer doesn’t fix fiberglass and wants $4800 to replace the front of the trailer. I’m pretty sure that the insurance isn’t going to fund a replacement….!! Repairing the awning ranged from $420 to $525. The insurance adjuster will be at the house on Monday afternoon to tell me what they will fund. It’s been an interesting experience getting the estimates! Fortunately, the folks who will likely get the work to do are not the folks who took the longest to do a simple estimate and are also booked full until mid-late August.

Ashlyn seems to be enjoying herself and Kendra is quite happy to be home. Kendra flew back yesterday (by herself) and has finished her three-week vacation. Ashlyn is out seeing the sights in Colorado Springs. She’ll fly home next Wednesday, given that she hasn’t been roasted (or broiled) in the meantime!

Saturday, July 12, 2003

Baraboo, Wisconsin! What an interesting place. The Ringling Brother’s Circus started here in Baraboo, Wisconsin. They would winter here and get ready for the next season’s show. That practice continued until 1919 when they bought out the Barnum and Bailey Circus, which was a much bigger operation. From that time forward, the winter home was in Sarasota, Florida. But because of the Ringling Brothers roots, the World Circus Museum is here in Baraboo. Even the name sounds like something that should be associated with the Circus.

We’re here on our way home from Ohio and Nina’s family reunion. The website at home has stopped working and I haven’t been able to make connection with it through any other means, either. I’ll need to put a dial-up capability on a system at home so I can dial in and figure out what the problem is. I also need the ability to remote start a system — perhaps by cycling power. That would by most helpful when I’m not physically there. Why do these systems go down when I’m some huge distance away??? So, I’m writing this using WordPad and will post it when I get home next Wednesday.

It’s been a fun and interesting trip. We’ve been in Pennsylvania with Kirk and Dawnmarie and their family, then in Kentucky with Jim and LeeAnn and their family. On Sunday past (I think that was July 6th), we all began congregating at Salt Fork State Park in Ohio. The park is located east of Cambridge, Ohio, near the I-77 and I-70 interchange. As we were setting up Sunday evening the heavens opened and we got drenched. That pattern continued the rest of the week. Lots of rain — and rain in copious quantities. One of the storms was accompanied on Monday evening by heavy, gusting winds. The winds did a couple thousand dollars damage to the camper. The front awning was ripped from its hinges resulting in a huge crack in the front of the camper. That is currently covered with duct tape to keep the rain and wind out. The storm also ripped the awning along side the camper. I’ll be checking with the insurance when we get home to see what help they can give me on getting thing fixed. Today is the first full day without rain in a week — and that’s probably because the Nettleton’s are no longer congregated in Ohio and we’re north of Madison, Wisconsin.

Tomorrow we’ll go to church at the Baraboo Branch and then drive westward ending up somewhere around Rochester, Minnesota. So, there’ll be more added tomorrow….

Monday, July 14, 2003

Tomorrow turned out to be Monday evening. We’re in a KOA campground near Grand Island, Nebraska. We’ll be home sometime late tomorrow afternoon or early evening, so long as everything works out OK. I’m tired – not really sure why as we’ve done nothing but sit in the car all day today. We decided to head straight home from Wisconsin and have Wednesday to get things cleaned out of the camper and such before I go back to work on Thursday. Besides, there isn’t a whole bunch of stuff worth spending much time on between Wisconsin and Colorado Springs – at least not in this heat.

We’ve traded rain for heat. It’s dang hot here – about 95 degrees at 8 p.m. Colorado Springs is very hot as well. This may be the last summer with no air conditioning at home.

The reunion was a lot of fun. The Salt Fork State Park was a nice venue. Nina’s younger brother Ralph made reservations for us in a cul-de-sac part of the campground so that we were all together at the end of the road. That certainly kept the traffic down in our part of the campground. Sites in state parks are spacious and spread out. There was plenty of room for tents (we were the only ones there with a trailer). By families — Marsha and Billy were there along with Marsha’s daughter Robin, husband Haldor and daughter Elenor and Marsha’s son Brett with his daughter Hanna. Nina’s sister Pam along with all of her kids and grandkids were there. Unmarried Matt and Serena came over. Benjamin and his girlfriend Stephanie were there. Vanessa, her husband Dean, and kids Skyler and Colby were there. Marilyn, her husband Al, and children Lauren and Seneth spent most of the week there. Jordan and Ashlyn were there with Pam for the week. Pam’s husband Ed came down for an afternoon. He’s working at a summer camp and needed to be there each evening. Nina’s younger brother Ralph along with his kids Ashlynn and an (unnamed) boyfriend along with a baby daughter Kelsey, and his son Shawn came over from Columbus. Ralph Jr. was not able to be there. Ralph’s wife Marion was also not able to be there since she was in Connecticut with her family as her father is very ill.

In our family, LeeAnn, the twins James and Steven and daughter Shaundra came up with us on Sunday and stayed through Tuesday night. Jim had started a new job and was only able to come up for a few hours on Tuesday evening. Heather and Jaelene flew into Cleveland on Monday and then flew back home Wednesday afternoon. Dawnmarie, husband Kirk, and children Madison, Spencer, Rachel, and Kate drove over from Pennsylvania. Daryl and Jared drove out together and left Thursday afternoon to drive back. We also brought Trevor’s daughter Kendra out with us so she could spend some time with her cousins. So we were well represented. With all that, we had 52 people there plus two dogs, Bradica and Zoey.

There weren’t any major activities planned, just visiting and whatever folks wanted to do. Since it rained from time to time in copious quantities, most people spent much of the time wearing wet clothes and sleeping in wet tents. Skunks were also present every evening. A couple of them got into Marilyn’s tent. One of them sprayed as they were trying to run the animals out of the tent. Scratch one tent!

The park is built around a very large reservoir and the beach was very nice. Late morning and early afternoon had a lot of sun on Monday and Tuesday so most of the kids went swimming. A couple of them got quite lobster-looking by Tuesday afternoon. Ralph brought plenty of food and enjoyed cooking the evening meals. Kirk made a marvelous breakfast on Tuesday morning for everyone. We didn’t lack for food. After the evening rain storms, sitting around the campfire was also quite enjoyable until the bugs drove us into the camper. Everyone agreed that we need to do this again in about three years – perhaps where it won’t rain every day???

We left Friday morning and drove just into Wisconsin and spent the night. We moved the camper to Baraboo on Saturday morning and spent the afternoon at the Circus Museum mentioned earlier. We went swimming in the “heated” pool long enough to cool off on Saturday evening. Sunday we got ready for church, packed up the camper, and drove over to the Baraboo Branch building. We stayed for Sacrament Meeting and then drove along the Wisconsin River, up the Mississippi River, and into Minnesota that afternoon. We camped near Austin, Minnesota, and left early this morning with the intent of getting as far into Nebraska as we could.

We did stop in Omaha at the Winter Quarters Temple and Visitors Center. We spent about an hour there. The Temple is beautiful. The grounds are exquisite. The Visitor’s Center was very interesting with a lot of artifacts. The film was very interesting, made up mostly of video to accompany journal entries concerning the time in Winter Quarters in 1846-1847. I think that was a much better film than the one in Kirtland.

We’re bringing two other souls back with us – Trevor’s daughter Kendra who has made the entire trip with us, along with Pam’s seventeen-year-old daughter Ashlyn. Both of them have been wonderful to travel with. Kendra is very easy. She does what’s asked of her without arguing or complaining. She seems to always be happy and she’ll eat anything. She’s almost 9 years old (going on 17). Ashland has been wonderful as well and a great companion for Kendra. Ashlyn has really wanted to do something outside of Ohio and this is her “chance.” She’ll fly back to Ohio a week after we get home. She’s a good kid – actively involved in the Church and very interested in doing right things. I’m impressed.

Internet connections using Sprint PCS have been spotty, much more so than I had expected. We had a poor connection in Pennsylvania at the campground, a little better connection at Kirk and Dawnmarie’s house, no connection at the campground in Kentucky but a pretty good connection at Jim’s house. There was no connection at the State Park. Even driving across the Ohio and Indiana Turnpikes was spotty. The first campground in Wisconsin had a connection, the second in Baraboo did not. The site in Austin, Minnesota had a good connection. We occasionally had signal today and no signal in this campground. I’d sure like this service to be much more reliable and available.

So, tomorrow we’ll arrive back in Colorado Springs, 19 days after we left. It’s been a fun trip and for most of the trip, we really didn’t want to go home. Now that we’re a day away, we’re both quite anxious to get home. I think we’ll be out of here quite early tomorrow morning.