A Greaaaaate Aussie Visit

We had a great (or, as Sue would say, "a greaaaaate") 5 day visit from Mom and Sister Sue and Brad from the land down under:

We drove out to the Bonneville Salt Flats:

Sue taste tested the salt ... but she was not impressed:

Brad got some great photos.  

Brad had a perfect shot lined up, then this family appeared in the middle of it, so he patiently waited for 15 minutes for them to clear out to get his shot:




Photographer's photographer gets photographed:

... and photographer's photographer's photographer takes a selfy, with the real photographer watching amusingly from the other lens:

There were no racing cars there this year, because of thin salt due to salt mining and/or lack of rain, but there is an crazy collection of other weird things, like this coffee maker:

And this fork:

I thought this was some sort of sea shell, but closer inspection showed it was a glass light shade:

Mom entertained us with lots of fun reminiscing:

A local LDS volunteer also entertained us with a tour of the 21,000 seat meeting hall, the largest auditorium in the world.   We are on the roof, which hides the scale of the building with fountains and trees:

This is from the top of the Snowbird ski resort tram, 11k feet up:

We started walking down:

But then discovered a tunnel through the mountain:

Which lead to a chair lift that we happily took down:

Lots of fine dining.   Note the anti-barking shock collar on the tray.   I routinely put it on, which is why doggy glaring at me with his mean laser eyes, and Helen takes it off, which is why she is getting an affectionate doggy hug:  

Lots of little hikes:

In pool fun, one of our neighbor boys demonstrated  levitation:

We had an English tea party in Irena and Boris's amazing flower garden:

Boris's favorite part is the 'Forget Me Not" daisy garden:

In addition to admiring the flowers, we flew through the solar system with a $20 adapter that turns your phone into a 3d VR headset:

Abbey came home from her 2 month tour of Italy on the last day, just in time for a nice visit:

They left for Mal and Kim's yesterday, the next stop on their 5 week adventure.

Bruce

A tale of 3 cities

We had 3 more road trips this month in our hunt for out next hometown.   First up was Wenatchee WA, a pretty fruit growing town on the Columbia river:

We had bad timing, as the town started burning down the day we landed.  This is night shot from our hotel room ... 30 houses burned down that night, including one of the ones that I was considering buying!  

That fire was mostly out in that neighborhood by morning, and nobody was hurt, but the hillside was blackened:

Some embers flew downtown and started a big fire in a fruit box manufacturing factory.  That black smoke includes fumes from an ammonia tank that blew up in the fire.   We were supposed to stay inside, close windows, and turn off the AC.   I went for a hike and held my breath instead: 

There were big chunks of charcoal ash scattered all over the city:

A nice town, with a great Neurology group, but like Missoula seems too small to support an Epileptologist.

Next stop, after a 4 hour midnight layover back home with a lonely doggy, was Birmingham AL:

The Statue of Liberty inspired local metal workers to build one of the Roman god Vulcan for the 1904 worlds fair:

It is the largest cast iron statue in the world, 56' tall (the Statue of Libery, 151' tall, is made with copper):

Like most of these southern towns, there are pretty green plants and trees everywhere:

This town didn't burn, but the downtown area is pretty economically depressed:

Our last visit was to Omaha NE, another pretty river town, this time on the Missouri river:

The flood of 2011 was 36' above flood level, leaving just this guy's anvil sticking up above the water:

The downtown was nice, with a water park running 4 blocks down to the river:

 


That should be the last of the cities we visit.    Helen is on one last followup visit to AL this weekend.   We expect to hear back from everyone and make a decision on where we will land this Fall within a few weeks.

Bruce