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| My Beginner Watercolor |
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| Talking with Our Son Jeremy and Grandson Quinn in Brazil. |
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| Darrell's Mom Shirley (90) Sitting Beside Husband Donald (91) at Rehab in Corinth, Texas |
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| Our Niece Kylee with Her Mom, Darrell's Sister Cyndy. Saturday. 29. Hard workout routine: Diamond Lite completed. Check! Eggs, pork tenderloin, and Dave’s seed toast for breakfast. I add in avocado and we have a bit of jam. It’s overcast today. We are a bit slow getting going today. Darrell has a mid-morning nap. His sister Cyndy texted me and invited us for dinner at her house. We accepted. I get the kitchen cleaned from breakfast and I begin to think about the cleaning in this house that I need to do to be ready for check out on Monday. I spend some time in prayer on my knees. I painted a watercolor today following along with a youtube tutorial. I’ve left my watercolors spread out on our large dining table during our stay. It’s been convenient. As much as I love a place looking like a magazine photo, I want to be able to get started with my task. My other to-do’s today: daily Bible reading; Duo Lingo Portuguese lesson(s); clean or organize something for moving day; nap; walk to the lakeside. Sunday. 30. After morning worship and goodbyes with the members of the church here, we went to lunch. Cyndy, Kylee, Mom met us at a Mexican restaurant. We enjoyed a meal together. Darrell and I went over to the rehab to sit with his Dad for a while. Once we got to his room, he sounded like he was singing or tuning a hymn. He was a song leader at church for most of his life. I started singing to him, “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty…” He listened and sang with me some, tuning into my voice. The words he tried to sing were not understandable. After that hymn was finished, he was quiet for a minute and then started singing his next song. I sang with him a few words here and there. I couldn’t remember the name of the song. We sang that song together in bits for a few minutes. Darrell overheard us and came in and identified the song as Nearer My God to Thee. We both started singing the song and Dad chimed in on key and in the tune, but the words were not understandable. We sang this song over and over about 4-5 times. I got a good cry thinking about singing with my father-in-law then and now. Darrell changed the song and we sang. We sang and had Dad’s attention for over an hour. Some of the songs he would sing with our tune and carry through a whole line. After our hour of singing, a nurse came in to see if Cyndy was here. Cyndy, Darrell’s sister, would be coming and we let her know. We told her that Dad was singing. She said that she knew because he was singing all night long. The person in the next room complained about the noise of him singing all night, and they wanted to move. We told her about his song leading and the song he was singing. She loved that he was singing hymns and praising God! In a few more minutes Cyndy arrived with Mom. (We didn’t know at this time, but this was our last visit with Dad. He continued to deteriorate and passed on April 15th just after we arrived in Calgary, Canada. On April 15th, Darrell flew back to Huntsville, Alabama for his eye treatment shot.)
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| Talking to Grandson Owen in Alabama from Our Truck. |
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| Our Road Trip West. The Weather and Mountains Became Imposing Going Into New Mexico Toward Edgewood, Albequerque and Gallup. |
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| Edgewood, New Mexico Restaurant Chili Hills for Lunch Stop. |
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| My Chili is 'Green' (not Red). Made with Green Chilis, Pinto Beans, Some Cubed Baked Potato, and The Toppings. It's Delicious and Unique to New Mexico. |
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| This Vintage Hotel in Gallup, New Mexico has a History with Hollywood. |
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| Inside the Hotel is a Unique and Comfortable Lobby. |
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| El Rancho Hotel Looking Down Into the Lobby from the 2nd Floor Lounge. The Walls are Filled with Signed Photos (copies) to the Hotel from Hundreds of Hollywood Actors. |
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| Vintage Furniture at the El Rancho Hotel |
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| Coming to El Rancho Hotel Surprized and Delighted Me. |
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| Our Room Door. |
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| Darrell Relaxing in Our El Rancho Betty Grable Room. Monday. 31. Today we woke up, exercised, had breakfast, packed up, cleaned up our airbnb house and drove to Amarillo, Texas. The drive is about 5 hours of mostly flat ranchland. Since it’s spring time, the temperature is tolerable! Lol. While Darrell drove, I booked our hotel in Amarillo. We stopped for lunch at a really good restaurant that made all kinds of Mexican and Central American foods. For dinner, we walked to a Sawgrass Steakhouse a couple of doors down from our hotel. Tuesday. 1. As our practice, we have our yoga mats with us and we get up and do morning ddp yoga first thing. Then we packed up and drove to a breakfast place in the direction of our day’s drive. We had a very nice, relaxing meal. We took off on the highway going west. For lunch we stopped at a place called ‘Chili Hills’. This restaurant had been here for years and served up the local green or red chili. It’s full of beans and then they added in meat by request. I got the green chili and it was fabulous! As we traveled onward, I discovered that this is a regional specialty. I couldn’t get it in Texas or in Utah. I searched and compared restaurants on google while Darrell did the bulk of the driving. I also chose a hotel stop and booked our room for the night in Gallup, New Mexico. While driving west, we hit heavy winds. Once we crossed into New Mexico the scenery became more interesting with rocky formations, hills and mountains! Lol. I drove through Albuquerque on our way to Gallup. East of Gallup the scenery is familiar to us. It is known and seen in hundreds of Hollywood westerns. It was a bit cold and spitted some snow during our evening in town and into the next early morning. Our Gallup hotel was El Rancho. When we arrived and entered, we discovered that this place is like a museum! It’s pretty amazing. There is a lovely lounge with stairs going up to the opened 2nd floor mezzanine with more seating. The walls are filled with Hollywood stars pictures. Within the lobby are vignettes of history thoughtfully set up to enjoy. There’s an old shoe shine cart. There’s the original elevator. We got our room key to the ‘Betty Grable’ room. She used to sleep here when she was making films here. The hotel was quite comfortable and enjoyable. We ate dinner and breakfast the next morning in town.
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| Driving North of Gallup is Window Rock. |
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| Council and Government Buildings for the Navajo Nation at Window Rock, NM |
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| Beautiful Morning at Window Rock, NM |
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| Darrell Driving North of Window Rock, NM. Heading for Moab, Utah. |
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| Beautiful Scenery Heading Hwy 491 North Through Reservation Land. The Road Had Very Few Travelers. |
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| More Enjoyable Scenery in NM Driving Hwy 491 North From Gallup. |
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| In South East Utah, Near Four Corners and on Hwy 191. A Mormon Museum that Presents an Interesting Travel and Resettlement Story from 1880 "Called Hole in the Wall". Good Gift Shop Here! |
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| View At Bluff From the Free Mormon Museum. |
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| At Edge of Cedars State Park, Utah |
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| Quirky History of the Mug Handle at Edge of Cedars State Park, Utah |
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| Edge of Cedars State Park, Utah. Kiva Self-tour |
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| Our Airbnb Door in Moab, Utah |
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| Moab, Utah Airbnb Inside the Blue Door |
Wednesday. 2. We got on the road after breakfast and drove north to Window Rock which is also the location for the Navajo Nation government. From Window Rock we continued driving north through the Navajo National lands. The road was very rural with few small gas and convenience stops. The scenery is gorgeous and well worth the drive. We stopped at two museums along our way to Moab, Utah. One was Bluff Fort a free museum run by Mormons to tell the story of ‘Hole in the Rock’ which I reference below. The other museum was ‘Edge of the Cedars’ State Park in Blanding, Utah. It’s quite a nice museum with loads of pottery and the history of the ‘mug’ handle showing up and then disappearing again between mid-11th century to end of 13th century. There’s also a Kiva, a circular, excavated underground house with a ladder to explore on your own. We drove on to our Moab, Utah airbnb for 3 nights. We ate dinner at a diner.
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| Wayne and Chris in Arches National Park |
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| Massive Rocks in Arches National Park. Darrell is Tiny and Looking Down From the Dip In That Rock Formation |
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| Our Group in Arches |
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| The Snowfall in Arches Park |
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| Darrell Going Forward in the Snow |
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| Darrell and Wayne in Arches with Snow |
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| Me and Chris in Arches Snow |
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| More Arches |
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| Cold Fun at Arches |
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| Gotta Keep Finding More Arches at Arches Park |
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| End of the Day at Arches and the Sun Comes Out!! lol. |
Thursday. 3. Today, Friday and Saturday we met up at breakfast with my oldest sibling, Wayne and his wife Chris. They are outdoor enthusiasts, and Chris has always loved rocks! So when we decided to explore Moab and the two close National Parks, we asked them to join us and here we are now. They flew into Salt Lake City, rented a car, did some other touring and arrived here to meet up with us.The last time we met for a tour together was for a Norway cruise in June 2022. Today we had a delicious breakfast, went by the grocery store to purchase picnic lunch items, and then drove 20 minutes from town into Arches National Park. Darrell had a timed entry scheduled online a few weeks ago. We are still fairly early in the season, but timed entry tickets are required. We drove in gawking at the beautiful and imposing rocky scenery. Darrell drove our truck and made photo stops along the way. It was overcast, but he day was beautiful. At one stop we encountered a heavy snow fall. It was so wonderful and special. We took snow covered pictures. We hiked on further at this stop outside of the snow fall. Within the hour, Chris and I hiked back to where we parked our truck and Darrell and Wayne went further on a longer hike. By the time Chris and I returned to the truck, the snow was mostly melted! There were also many more people coming into the parking lot for this stop. Chris and I drove on. We met up with Darrell and Wayne a bit later. We took another scenic arch-viewing walk. We took several walks this day, had a picnic lunch sometime during the day, and got back to town for dinner. We dropped Wayne and Chris at their place with plans to get them the next morning for breakfast and our drive through Canyonlands National Park.
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| Our First Stop in Canyonlands National Park |
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| Wowza. Canyonlands. |
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| Darrell and Wayne in Awe at Canyonlands Park |
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| Darrell on a Ledge. |
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| Canyonlands Ledge! Wayne and Chris. |
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| Darrell at Canyonlands |
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| Wowza. Canyonlands. |
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| Walking a Trail to Go Up That Big Rock. |
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| That Big Rock. People Are Way Up There. |
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| Me and a Tree Going Up the Big Rock |
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| A View While Walking Up The Big Rock |
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| Darrell's View From The Top. I'm in the Blue Coat. |
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| My View of Darrell on Top |
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| On the Another Big Rock with Views |
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| Darrell and Wayne with Views! |
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| Chris and Me. This Was a Long Hike Up! |
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| Another Hiking Summit in Canyonlands. Colorful Valley Below. |
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| The Views!! Exhilarating! |
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| Tricky Climb |
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| Storm Over the View |
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| Sunshine again |
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| Sleet at this Stop! lol. |
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| Weather Cleared at the End of Our Canyonlands Drive |
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| Our First Stop in Canyonlands. Yes, It's a Real Ledge
Friday. 4. Today was a long and amazing adventure into a section of Canyonlands National Park. We took long walks up huge rocks. We gazed into huge and awe-inspiring canyons. The weather varied throughout the day as we used our layers to adjust for the temperatures. We enjoyed a picnic lunch and dinner back in Moab.
Nomad Notes: Bluff Fort Travel-Settlement History in Utah in 1880 https://ensignpeakfoundation.org/bluff-utah/#:~:text=The%20journey%20required%20that%20they,below%20(now%20Lake%20Powell). "One of the truly remarkable stories of the settling of the American West is that of the “Hole-in-the-Rock” pioneers. A group of Mormons called by their Church leaders to move from regions such as Iron County, Utah to settle what is now San Juan County in the extreme southeast area of the state. They traveled some two hundred fifty miles through territory that was extremely rugged and inhospitable. The journey required that they cross the deep Colorado River basin with its steep and rocky cliffs. This they did by carving and blasting a natural cleft in the rock down to the river, descended through a rocky crevice to the Colorado River below (now Lake Powell). The 1,300 foot descent approaching 45 degrees could only be accomplished after widening the upper section with blasting powder, chiseling off high points in the dugway, creating anchor points directly into the sandstone for large ropes to hold back the wagons, and with pick and shovel building up a road bed at key points. After crossing to the east side of the Colorado, the hardships continued."
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