Creede

We enjoyed time walking around Creede when we were parked there earlier this month.  We saw this small garden, complete with a mural and a young girl walking on the stone wall.  She reminded us of our granddaughter Kylie who used to balance on a wall near our home in Centennial.

The were flowers blooming everywhere in downtown Creede.

There were also a number of interesting sculptures, like this long-legged bird.




Our RV resort, Mountain Views at River's Edge, is beautiful.  We enjoyed walking around there, too.  Love this small lake and the reflections.

These sculptures are scattered around the resort.

The antler light fixture in the meeting hall is really impressive.

We will definitely stay there again, if we are in the area.

Art and People Everywhere

Saturday we decided to check out the art and craft show in Fountain Hills, an upscale community near Scottsdale. The park in the center of downtown has statues of several of our presidents.

Here is Franklin D. Roosevelt

and Ronald Reagan

This fountain erupts for 15 minutes each hour between 9 am and 9 pm.  It was once the highest fountain in the world,

I love these sculptures of children.  We saw several on Saturday and we have seen them in other communities, as well.

Each artist had their own tent and the tents went on for what seemed forever.  There were lots and lots of people there.  This photo only shows a narrow edge of the crowd.

Loved this couple from a local volunteer fire department, sitting out under their umbrella.

I didn't take photos of the wares in the artists' booths. Often they frown on that. We spent the most time looking at fine wood objects and pottery. There were also photographs, paintings and drawings, all kinds of hand-made objects, and lots of specialty foods. We also saw a food court.

We showed great restraint. Really, we didn't need restraint. There is almost nothing in the world we need. Our house already has all the decorations it needs and we keep making more things and have trouble figuring out where to put them. We would have loved some food, but we are dieting.

It was a fun way to spend a few hours on a beautiful, sunny day.

US Capital

We checked into the Cherry Hill RV park in College Park, Maryland, and spent two days exploring Washington, DC.  The park is only 4 miles from a metro train station so we drove there and took the Green Line.

The train wasn't full but there were quite a few riders.  We boarded near the main entrance to the University of Maryland so there were a lot of college-age riders in addition to the tourists. It was too late in the morning for people who work in the District of be aboard.

The is the underground station where we waited for the train.

At both ends of the journey we used escalators like this to reach the street level.

We found another cell phone user to take our picture in front of the U.S. Capitol.

One group of visitors approaching the capitol were all dressed in American flag-inspired jackets.

This white star figure in located in the center of the floor of statuary hall in the capitol.  It is also the center of the congressionally designated District of Columbia.

John took this photo looking up to the dome of the capitol.

A painting featuring George Washington.

Our tour guide, here in the red jacket, was wonderful.  She was so knowledgeable and able to tell members of her group about the statues in the hall that are from their state.  Everyone in a tour group is given headphones.  The guide speaks into a mike on a radio frequency heard only by the people in the group.  It made it so easy to hear her and meant the building wasn't as noisy as when each guide was talking loud enough to be heard to the whole group while also hearing other guides.

These are the people carved into a band below the upper railing in the dome.

This statue represents three women who helped bring about women's suffrage, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

During the tour we passed the entrance to the offices of Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

These are just a few of the statues in Statuary Hall.

We had both been in the capitol before but I really enjoyed seeing where so many important decisions have been made over the past 200+ years in our great country. The concept that the Founding Fathers brought into being in this country has truly changed the world and we are so blessed to be able to live here.

Scenery Along I-10

Texas is HUGE, as anyone knows who has driven across the state. I don't think we are even half way across but the environment has changed several times.

This is what the countryside looked like around El Paso.

When we looked west across the Rio Grande River toward Mexico we saw this horrible pollution.  It was very cold and many people in Mexico use wood fires for heat.

Gradually the amount of vegetation increased.

It got thicker.

We saw this sign announcing that the town of Fort Stockton was ahead.

Then we saw the statue that is depicted in the sign.

Texas is rich in energy resources.  Of course there are lots of oil wells.  An oil field has recently been developed near Fort Stockton.

West Texas is also windy.  And the state is harnessing that resource as well.

It is fall in Texas, not winter like up north.  The oak trees on the hills are turning subtle colors of red and yellow.

The first two years we volunteered, we came to Texas and fell in love with the state. We are enjoying our month here.

As we made our way south and east from Yellowstone, we spent 2 nights in the small western town of Cody, Wyoming, named after William F. Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill. We stayed at the Wyoming Trout Ranch RV a few miles out of town. It was attractive, quiet and mostly empty. And it really is a trout ranch. They have a fish hatchery where they raise several types of trout. They also have tipis, "Glamping" tents, for people who don't have an RV.

We had visited Cody before and explored the Buffalo Bill museum complex. This time we checked out the Old Trail Town Museum which contains the largest collection of local  historic buildings and historic artifacts in Wyoming. They have cabins once used by members of the Hole in the Wall Gang, Kid Curry, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They also have lots of old wagons and a carpenter shop.

There is an old General Store and a Funeral Coach.

We were most interested in the cemetery at the Old Trail Town. Several historic persons have been reburied there, including a buffalo hunter, frontiersman, trapper, two murdered men and one famous murdered woman. In addition, Jeremiah Johnson is buried there. He is of special interest to us because he and John's great great grandfather were both involved in an Indian battle in Montana in 1868. He was made famous in the movie Jeremiah Johnson starring Robert Redford. Redford was a pallbearer in 1974 when Johnson's body was reburied in Cody.

Downtown Cody has a number of attractive old signs. One store has made a bench from a bed headboard and tractor seats.

There are also a number of interesting buffalo statues in town.