Spring Break 2009

It is that time of the year again. Traci and I packed up and headed out to see my family in California. We planned out the trip so that we would arrive in Sacramento on Sunday night, drive up the coast and through the redwoods on Monday and hang out in Paradise until Thursday afternoon.

Our travel to California was uneventful and Monday morning excursion went off as planned. We drove from Sacramento to Fort Bragg in the morning and enjoyed some quality time on the beaches and cliffs overlooking the beaches. Our rental car was a convertible which made the trip up the coast that much more memorable. There is nothing more refreshing than having the wind whip through your hair and feeling the rain catch you on the forehead from time to time. Yeah, it rained on and off again during our drive but the faster we drove the more the rain went right over the top of us. :-)

Fort Bragg

You have to love the Pacific

Professing our love in the sand

Our coastal chariot

We left our scenic Highway 1 drive and headed inland to Highway 101 to go through the redwood forest. Traci had mentioned that she took a trip with her family many years ago to the redwoods and during that trip drove through a huge redwood tree. I broke the news that there were quite a few redwood forests and that the odds of finding that same tree were pretty slim. As we were making our transition from Hwy 1 to the 101, there was this LARGE sign that read "Drive through redwood tree ahead" and as luck would have it, it was the same one that Traci experienced as a young one. :-)

Traci re-living one of her childhood memories

We made it.. barely

We spent the next few hours getting in and out of the car to gawk at the monster redwoods and walk through the forest. The time spent out there was priceless! A light mist was falling, the wind was whipping through the tops of the trees, and the sound of the river could be heard when we were walking around.

Where the redwood trees live

One of many small rivers running through the redwoods

Redwood, fern, and us

I mapped our route in Kansas City and so far everything was going as planned. We were on time and about where I thought where we would be at 4 in the afternoon. According to the map, the most direct route to Paradise was Highway 36 and based on how fast we had been driving we should have been able to cover this distance in a couple of hours. That was before we knew that it was an old logging road that went right over the tops of the mountains and was nothing but curves. If you have been on a curvy road before, you have seen the 25mph warning signs for sharp corners. This road had them every 1/4 mile and the slowest warning was 10mph. We experienced the following during our 4 hour journey: Stripped cars, the lines disappeared from the road for several miles, clouds on the road, snow, rain, and unbelievable views.

We eventually made it to Paradise after spending 13 hours in the car and were able to spend some quality time with the family.

Hope your Spring Break was as exciting and memorable as ours.

Bill and Traci

5 years already?

Holy cow!!

Can you believe I have been employed with the same company for 5 years? I am not surprised that I am still working for the same company; however, I cannot believe 5 years have come and gone.

Friday we had a company lunch for all those folks who reached this milestone. We went to Skies which is one of the nicer restaurants in Kansas City. This is the same restaurant that I had lunch at before I started. Skies sits atop the Hyatt Regency and rotates 360 degrees over the course of your two hour meal. We were each presented with a real marble clock that includes our names, company logo and "5 year anniversary".

5 year gift

I started with about 52 people and as of Friday there were just 14 of us left. The ones who are left are the ones I thought would have lasted this long as they are passionate about what they do and are driven by challenge.

My Start group

I hope you are enjoying what you do and that time goes by soooo fast you say WOW every now and then. :-) You know the saying.. Time flies when you are having fun.

Take care,

Bill and Traci

Spring!

Okay, so as many of you know Bill is the blog-master in our household. I just have not gotten into the whole blogging thing yet. Guess it's because anything I would write about, Bill has already blogged about : ) Plus, I am a huge fan of talking on the phone!

But, I finally have a topic to blog about...the weather in Kansas City.

First, a little background to those of you who don't know me as well. I grew up in South Dakota and lived there my entire life until accepting a teaching position in Kansas City 9 years ago. Now, South Dakota has 4 lovely seasons which consist of almost winter, winter, colder winter, and summer. Therefore I never truly experienced the lovely Spring weather that I now get here in Kansas City. I must admit, this is my favorite time of the year.

I think it is several factors that make me love Spring so much: the temperature (obvious), the flowers begin to bloom, everything begins to turn green and so full of life, the birds return, gardening begins, and the wonderful smells of Spring return.

Now, I don't know if I just realized how wonderful Spring is this year because of the extremely cold winter we had, or if it is because I had my 30th birthday this last year and I am getting old. (It always seemed to me things like birds and flowers are associated with the old people because my Grandfather loved them so much).

Regardless of why I appreciate it so much more now doesn't matter. It's just great to have had that change in my life. It really gives more meaning to the old phrase "Stop and Smell the Roses."

Traci and Bill

Lake Lata-hoo-ya

This past Friday, Traci and I took a drive out to the Lake House in Lake Lotawana to watch the band Alter Ego play. The crowd was mix of business folks, a church group and some locals looking to swill some beer. Joy, the lead singer, works with me at Cerner and we make every effort to get out and watch them from time to time. They play classic Rock and Roll and were the band that played at our Kansas City wedding reception.

Alter Ego in action

Joy and Bill


Joy's better 1/2 and Traci

The Lake House is as big as it sounds. It is a small cozy bar that is about 45 minutes from Kansas City out in the middle of no where. Traci and I went on one of our first real dates at the Lake House and whenever we go back, we are always taken back to time we spent 2hours staring into each others eyes (ahhh).

Traci and Bill

It is definitely worth the drive and the music was rocking!!

We hope you had a great weekend!

Bill and Traci

A taste of Missouri (Mizzeraa)

This past weekend Traci and I went on a day trip to the small town of Weston. Weston is about a 45 min. drive from our house and is about 15 minutes off of one of the main interstates (I-29).

The weather was an unseasonably warm 72 degrees and the wind was kicking up pretty good. We arrived in town about 2pm and made out way to one of the many antique shops on Main Street. Rather than roam up and down the street and hope that we found something interesting, I asked the owner of the shop if he could make some recommendations. He said he would do so and offered to give us a history lesson. The three of us walked to the front door of the store and he proceeded to tell us how the Great Missouri River used to run right across the street and that a fire destroyed the entire town in the mid 1800's. He also mentioned that at one time, Weston's population was 3 times that of Kansas City. After he finished his story we began our stroll around the town.

We walked across the street to where the river used to flow and peered into a tobacco drying warehouse, the Weston Burley House. There were several people inside milling about as we took pictures and stared.

Tobacco drying

Next stop was the Weston Brewing Company where enjoyed a beer, lunch and some Irish music. At first, the music was sort of soothing to the ears and enjoyable; however, after listening to it for over an hour we were ready to stick pencils through our ear drums. Every song was the same!! About some man droning on about a girl who wanted gold or love or something... :-)

At lunch

As we were leaving, we overheard some people talk about going to the bar next door. We followed them and made our down to one of the coolest bars I have ever been to. This place was at least 75 feet underground and had a guy singing the same annoying music we had heard upstairs. We hung out for a beer and then made our way back down to Main Street for some more shopping.

The cool bar

See the guitar dude to the left

The lower level

Main Street

One thing I failed to mention earlier was that the old man from the store said that the world's largest ball of twine was located right here in this town; however, failed to tell us where it was. I asked a few of the other store owners where the twine was and none of them knew what I was talking about. I was beginning to think the guy was having fun with us. Weston's Town Hall was across the street from our current location so I wandered on in and asked the lady with the poodle in her lap where the ball of twine was located. :-) She gave us directions and we headed back to the brewing company. We found the ball of twine chained up like circus animal hidden in one of the corners of the patio. It looked pretty sad and was probably not the biggest in the world.

The chained up ball of twine

I was feeling pretty strong

We wrapped up our trip by driving through the cemetery looking at old grave markers. The cemetery was located on the side of a steep hill and many of the markers were from the 1850's.

If you are ever in Western Missouri and want see some of history, I recommend taking a stroll through the town of Weston. Who knows, we might be back as I hear they have a great Irish Fest.

Hope your weekend weather was pleasant!

Bill and Traci