July 31

This morning started early with my taking Robert and Nancy to the Boise airport so they could return to their home in Redwood City (San Francisco Bay area). I then started on my cross country trek.

Admittedly, this is the first time in about 25 years that I have traveled alone on a vacation. It's exciting and a little scary all at the same time. In the past, I have scheduled my trips and made reservations in advance so I know exactly what town I will be in and when and how long I'll be there. This time, I purposely have decided not to have advance reservations at any motels etc so that I have flexibility in taking side trips or just taking it easy during my travels. Today, I made it to Bozeman, Montana where I am at a Days Inn motel. Fortunately, they also have a free internet connection. My destination is Watertown, South Dakota where I have some more relatives to visit. I travelled about 500 miles today and still have about 800 more miles to go. Since I'm in no particular hurry, I'm guessing it will be Sunday before I make it to Watertown.

I did go through the town of West Yellowstone today and was tempted to go through Yellowstone Park. Admittedly, however, I was concerned about the availability of lodging in Yellowstone without reservations on a weekend, so I decided to play it safe and travel to Bozeman. I have been through Yellowstone a couple of times in the past and know it is a beautiful park. I also know it can get very cold overnight and was not interested in camping in the park. While I am interested in trying some new and different things during this vacation, there is also part of me that wants to play it safe (what do you expect from an accountant *grin*) . The safe part of me won the battle this time. We'll see what happens in the future.

I'm finding this Garmin navigation system (that I just purchased at Costco in Idaho) very helpful. The Garmin unit also doubles as a hands free telephone for my car by using bluetooth in combination with my cell phone. I used the Garmin unit as a phone after seeing a billboard advertisement saying Day Inn had rooms for $49.95 and up with free internet service in Bozeman. I called Days Inn via the Garmin unit (it had the phone number already included as part of the electronic maps it contains) and then used the Garmin unit to guide me to the Day Inn motel in Bozeman. I was impressed with how well it worked. I would definitely recommend it for anyone taking a road trip to unfamiliar locations.

So, until next time, wish you all the best,

Clint...........

July 30th

First, a technical note. I originally created this blog as a private blog where only the people I invite could access this blog. I was thinking that some people might be concerned to see pictures or videos of themselves on the internet. However, I since found that invitees who wanted to access the blog for anything more than a 15 day period also had to open a google account. So, I changed the status to a public blog. I will not specifically identify anyone in the pictures which hopefully will reduce any concerns of showing pictures in this blog. You can now access it without entering any userid and password at http://clintsvacation.blogspot.com.

We returned from our camping trip yesterday. As I indicated earlier, I was with a group of 14 people and one dog. The people varied in age from 6 to 82 . Except for Clara (my sister) and I, they were all with the Solomon clan. They consisted of my aunt, 6 cousins (including their spouses), and 4 cousins once removed (my cousins' kids), a friend of one of the kids, my sister and myself.

The newest addition to the Solomon clan is a black lab mix named Martha. She is the cutest dog. Admittedly, it's a way for me to get my dog fix since I do miss my own dogs, Gabby and Poppy. I have some friends, Todd and Andrea, taking good care of them in the Phoenix area.

During our camping trip, we had a number of hikes/walks, visits to the beaches next to a nearby lake and our cliff jumping adventure. We also had some singalongs since most of the Solomons are very musically talented. Aunt Ruth is the wife of a recently deceased Presyterian pastor and often led the music programs at the churches where her husband preached. Her kids have the same gift for music that she has. Her daughter, Nancy, led us in singalongs with her ukelele for a couple of nights.

They also practiced a musical piece that they performed at their fathers cemetery service which we all attended at the end of the camping trip yesterday. Since their father was also an officer in the Air Force (at that time, part of the U.S. Army) in World War II as a meteorologist, they had a military portion of the service where 6 uniformed serviceman conducted a service including playing a bugle, opening and folding a U.S. flag and presenting it to Aunt Ruth. It was very moving, solemn ceremony.

My sister, Clara, will be flying home this evening to Phoenix. I will be leaving here (Nampa, (suburb of Boise), Idaho) tomorrow morning and traveling to Watertown, S.D. It will probably take me 2 or 3 days to get there from here where I'll be meeting a cousin and his spouse at their home. They said we may be doing some fishing. Admittedly, I haven't fished in many years, so I'm looking forward to it.

I've tried a couple of times to upload a video to this blog, but I can't seem to get it successfully uploaded. However, below are some pictures of our camping that I was able to upload.

Cliff Jumping

As indicated earlier, we also did some cliff jumping yesterday. To the left are two pictures of our cliff jumping adventure and one at our campsite.

July 28 Campsite

This is my first attempt to upload some pictures and video about my vacation to my blog. Following are some pictures at our campsite.

My vacation has begun

Since quite a few people I know have started blogs lately, I thought I would give it a try. I started my vacation last Friday and thought this would be a great topic for my first blog. Admittedly, I'm a CPA whose aptitude with working with numbers is much better than writing, so please forgive any grammatical errors you may find.

A little background might help. This is my first significant vacation since my wife passed away last year from cancer. I decided I would take about four weeks off and take a cross country road trip. I recently purchased a 2009 Toyota Highlander crossover vehicle and thought it would be quite appropriate for this road trip.

I'm tentatively planning on visiting relatives and friends in 4 major destinations - Idaho, South Dakota, Ohio and Virginia. My sister, Clara, decided to join me on the first leg of my trip to Idaho where we are camping with my Aunt Ruth and her two sons, a daughter and their families. On Wednesday, we plan to drive back to the Boise area where Aunt Ruth and her son and family lives. I will then go on to South Dakota and my sister will fly back home.

We have a total of 14 people who are sharing a group campsite (I think it is 2 campsites joined together). This campsite is near McCall Idaho. We arrived here Sunday and I was surprised how many features it has. It has power outlets, shower facilities and WiFi internet access. Admittedly, I was mildly disappointed in that I was hoping to be a little closer to nature, etc., but I have to admit the additional features are nice to have. For instance, the WiFi access is permitting me to setup and write this blog.

We are using a total of five tents around this campsite plus a covered area we created for when it rains. The climate is wonderful, especially compared to the hot Phoenix weather.

Today we went cliff jumping into a nearby lake. The location had 3 jumps (approx 10 ft, 20 ft and 30 ft levels). I found the nerve to jump from all 3 of them. We all had a lot of fun jumping off the cliffs although we could tell that a couple of teenagers with us (children of Bob and Betty Solomon) had the most fun.

I'll do my best to update this blog on a daily basis. I also hope to add pictures and videos (if I can figure how to add them to a blog) of my vacation adventures in the next few days. I better sign off now. They're repeatedly telling me that it's time to eat.