The North Woods!

One week and then the next!

Mississppi River Headwaters

The Mississippi River's Headwaters are at Lake Itasca near Bemidji, Minnesota. It doesn't look quite the same as the river many see near New Orleans as you can tell by the fact that our Grandson Cam (right) and Son Rich (left) walk across the rocks at its origin. Pretty neat spot!

The spot is also quite a contrast to Bangkok, Thailand where Rich lives and teaches English at Thammasat University.

We spent a few nights at Phil and Mary Gelhorn's lake home on Birch Lake near Hackensack. We were able to get in a bit of canoeing one morning when the lake was like glass. Very serene and if you look closely in the one picture you can see three lake otters that were having a ball as they played with us, but kept their distance from the canoe.

In another few weeks Birch Lake will freeze over and snow will blanket the area; temperatures just may get down to -40 during December or January. Snowmobiles will then replace the canoes!

Ah, The Fjords of Norway

Neither these few written comments or the pictures will begin to do justice to the amazing Norway Fjords. And notice we specifically mention the fjords, because if one would travel to Norway and not travel into the fjord region, then it would be like driving up to the entrance of Disney World and turning around and going home.

The mixture of the fjords with the snow-capped mountains, the quaint homes very small villages along the fjords, majestic waterfalls, boats and ferries, trains, endless number of tunnels, glaciers and even ice covered (in June) mountain lakes makes travel through this area just so special. And yes, we were fortunate enough to even see reindeer; our tour escort who had made hundreds of trips through this area could only remember seeing reindeer in this area a couple of other times.

The Norwegian people are very genuine and friendly. The speak good English. The service at all hotels and restaurants was as fabulous as the accommodations and the food.

And do you want to get away to where it is quiet; in the little village of Balestrand we went for a 40 minutes walk on the main road one morning and saw one car.

Its easy to see why National Geographic often rank the Fjords of Norway as the number one tourist destination in the world. We were very blessed to have been able to visit!

The pictured Stave Church was built in 12th century. The top of the ski jump is the site of the 1994 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer. They were doing practice jumps while we were there; we passed when they offered to let us a take a jump or two! Some of the pictures are from our hotel rooms.

Kyle, Lucy, Evie--Great Grandchildren

"Rambunctious Kyle", "Inquisitive Lucy" and "Porcelain Doll" Evie are well and healthy!

Life's a "Beach" in Thailand

Our Son Rich teaches English at Thammasat University in Thailand. While living close to the massive city of Bangkok is not something he enjoys, he has a great position at an excellent university. He departs the city as often as he can and travels to some beautiful and interesting places in Thailand and neighboring countries. Here is a few pictures from a recent trip to the beach.

Anthony and Brianna at Disney World

Disney World's motto is that Its the Happiest Place on Earth and we are not about to dispute that claim after spending fours days there with Grandchildren Anthony and Brianna Calvano! Very special time with some very neat kids!