M.K.Duke

This was my second time driving across the country this year and my fifth time doing it all together, each time I have done it I have gone different routes so I am seeing new things.  When we moved Jas out to Ohio four years ago we actually drove across Canada which was the most scenic of the treks by far.  I didn’t take very many pictures of the beginning of the trip since the Midwest is pretty uneventful as far as scenery goes, on our second day of driving we stopped in Kansas at a park for a while to stretch our legs and so Jas and his Dad could play a round of Frisbee golf.  The park had a weird layout for how huge it was there wasn’t any kind of main access area but it did have a corral of Buffalo so Kathy and I hung out with them for a while trying to get a good picture although the double fence made it hard to get close to them.

As we were driving through Eastern Kansas heading into Colorado we had to drive through a huge system of storms.  There were a lot of weird looking clouds and the severe weather alert kept coming up on the radio announcing warnings for different counties which was scary since we didn’t really know what counties we were heading into since we didn’t have a map!

Later we looked up the name for the clouds that we saw; these are Mammatus clouds and they are indicative of very unstable air.

It was a very eerie experience driving through those clouds feeling like a tornado was going to touch down at any moment and send us flying to our deaths.  When we got to Jason’s Great Aunt Jeanne’s later that evening we watched the news and there were 5 confirmed tornadoes in the same area that we had been driving through.    We spent two days at Aunt Jeanne’s in Denver, she is a very neat lady full of spunk reminds me a lot of Grams I think those two would get along well together with their love of gardening and abundance of energy, here we are having lunch out on her back patio…

Jason had interviewed for residency in Denver as well and Jeanne tells us that she was hoping for us to get back to Portland but if that didn’t happen she was secretly hoping for Denver, I thought this was funny since Grams had told Jason and I the same thing after finding out that we were headed to Utah she secretly was hoping for Columbus if he did not get into the Portland program.   Jason and I drove to Boulder in the afternoon and did a quick tour of the Flagstaff area, it was a cloudy afternoon so the views of Boulder from up there and the surrounding mountains were not the best but it was still fun, here is a picture of us sitting on a boulder looking out at Boulder.

Lots of really pretty wildflowers in bloom up there, it is always fun to see what the different kinds are compared to what we have in Oregon…

The next day Jas, Kathy, Dan and I went to the Denver Botanical Gardens which was fun but I think we all agreed that they had nothing on Butchart Gardens in Victoria B.C.  The tropical gardens are always my favorite, reminds me of living at the OSU Greenhouses, here is the inside of an Angel’s Trumpet (Brugmansia )…

The next day we left Denver and headed through the mountains towards Utah…

We arrived in Utah took us about 9 hours to drive from Denver to Salt Lake there are not many large towns until you reach Provo.

Surprisingly the truck was able to back up into our narrow driveway making unpacking a little easier…

I love our new home, there is so much for us to explore here I am sure three years is going to wiz right by.  Dan found a system of trails that is within walking distance from our house; here is a picture of Jas perched on a rock chair looking out over the valley…

That is all for now but there is more to come, pictures of our trip to Antelope Island, Scenic shopping experience, New foods to try and of course Pictures of the new place all put together!