Tuesday, October 24, 2017

I Can't Believe I'm This Old!


I'm off again, flying out of Salt Lake City to go to Harrisburg, PA, where I grew up.


This is the beautiful school where I went to high school. Five years ago, it was abandoned and the high school moved to a new building out of town.


I wandered back behind the school to see how the stadium seats have been overgrown. Just as good as rusty stuff!


I can't believe the football field got this overgrown in just 5 years! The weeds were way taller than I was.


But the big reason I am here? My 50th high school reunion! Conversation was easy - "What have you been doing for the last 50 years?"


There were 400 in my graduating class, and 110 of them attended the reunion. I'm seated on the left here.


Some more of the attendees.


These are the ones from my grade school.



The most famous of my fellow graduates was the president of our class, who became the mayor of Harrisburg for 28 years! He was called the Mayor for Life, and was so popular that no one ran against him most of the time.



Two of my very best friends from high school, Toni and Mary Lou, were there. It was amazing that we just picked up where we left off, even though we hadn't seen each other in 50 years!


A picture of us from high school - I'm in the lower right, Toni's in the upper right, and Mary Lou is upper center.


While there, I stayed at my father's house, and one day took him down to see my son and his family. Here's a photo of the 4 generations.


My son's a great dad - even painting my granddaughter's nails. "Hey, Daddy, I think you missed a spot..."

Saturday, October 7, 2017

Heading South, with a Stop in Idaho Falls


After Yellowstone, I headed south because I would be flying out of Salt Lake City to go back east for a couple very important things. But first, I stopped in Idaho Falls. The falls here are interesting because they are partly dammed up and partly preserved in their original state.


The Idaho Falls LDS Temple is the big attraction here.


Birds sit on the top of the falls to catch their dinner.


Along the Riverwalk are various animal sculptures.


Cute!


Also some stone Japanese lanterns.


One day, I headed south to the State Fair, stopping along the way to see Hell's Half Acre, an area of volcanic flow.


At the fair I saw some very clean animals -


Hi there!


Awwww.... How cute!



The highlight of the day for me was the kid's pie eating contest.


This guy didn't win, but he was really cute, and I loved his shirt!