A glimpse of the West in Omaha and San Francisco

 This is Mr. Chef Boyardee.  Omaha is the headquarters for ConAgri foods.

 I loved this little alley way.

 Many of the old buildings have signs written on the old brick...charming!

 Also downtown, are large bronze statues of covered wagons, buffalo, geese, cattle and people.

They were amazingly detailed.  It was raining very hard when we visited these, so I didn't get good close up pictures.

 Jumping to the fast paced world of San Francisco.  This city is a charming city also, even though it is totally different from Omaha.  We had a great time riding the trolley car!

 one of the many streets with houses joined together.  The only difference between each house is the color of paint.

 This picture was taken at 10:00 p.m. from my bedroom window.

A nice place to visit.

March Updates

Sharla and I took Dad and Mom on a road trip to Death Valley, Bishop, Mono Lake and Manzanar. We also went to see Owens lakebed. This is how our valley will look if LV takes our water. Everyone we talked to, said the dust storms are terrible.
I didn't realize that Mono Lake was also involved in the water grab in Owens Valley. The people went to court and they were able to get some of their water back. Many of these tufts are out in the desert now, because the lake dropped so much.



This is a garden at Manzanar. During the time of the internment, it was full of trees, bushes and flowers. A much different setting than Topaz.

Not much snow on the Sierra Nevada's. They are beautiful mountains though. I like them almost as much as the Tetons. They are so rugged looking. Dad said a deer wouldn't be able to stand on the ledge because they are so steep.

I really like these borax wagons. Processing borax was a big business in the old days at Death Valley.

This is Artist Palette Canyon. Very pretty and a very windy, dippy road. I felt we were on a roller coaster. Death Valley has not had any rain all winter. Hence, no wildflowers!

Our cows have been calving and we had to bring a couple in the house to warm them up. Once this little girl was warm, she was ready to rumble! We had to get her back to Mom quick, or she would have had the house torn apart.

Jesse, Vanessa and Kaylee

Amber

Amber sporting her sunglasses at the zoo. She is really getting a cute personality. When we talk on the telephone, she knows she is supposed to talk into the little box (phone) and will sit and jabber at us.

February updates

I haven't taken many pictures the past couple of months, but John has taken a couple of pictures that I'll share. There is a pair of bald eagles that have been hanging around Baker and Garrison.

John took these pictures in Garrison. Cool huh!

Thanksgiving and Christmas 2011

The first Ugly Sweater Party by the Hanks family. Since there were

some who didn't get to sport off their ugly sweaters, we are doing it again.
Amber knew exactly what to do with her present.

Ambers first Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's.

The Hansen crew after Thanksgiving dinner.

Amber opening up another Christmas present.

Four generations

Ghost Town #2

This is the old mining town of Berlin. In the late 1800's they mined

gold. This ghost town is one of many in Nevada
A stark reminder of a hard life.



Two or three miles down the road is Ichthyosaur state park. Millions of years ago when Nevada
was at the equator, these fish (50-70 ft long) swam in the ocean. Somehow they died and geologists have found at least 39 in this area. There is a small quarry here that shows some of the bones. Most of the other bones they found were excavated in an archaeological dig and then covered back up. It's pretty weird to see skeleton's of fish out in the desert!

We liked the old truck

Since the price of gold has gone up so high, a company is mining again right outside of the park.

Ghost town #1

This picture is overlooking the ghost town of Bannack.
I got a kick out of the different wall papers that are still on the walls. This must have been how the "respectable" women showed their personalities. They didn't go out of their houses unescorted. Out of the 200-300 men in the town, there were only about 20 "respectable" women.

This is the jail. It has a heavy thick door and rings in the floor to chain up the prisoner.

This is the original courthouse, later turned into a hotel

Ah, the winding staircase

The bankers house

I like visiting ghost towns and seeing what the miners and their families lived in and try to get a small taste what life was like for them many years ago. We found this one and I would go visit again. There are over 50 buildings that you can go into. My favorite house was the bankers. It had 11 rooms in it and a winding staircase. Fixed up, I could live in it today :-)

My favorite mountains

The first time I saw the Tetons it was in the spring and I thought I was in heaven. There was still snow on the peaks, the sky was blue as blue can be and the grasses and meadows were vivid green.
This moose has the biggest web I have ever seen. Two big boys right together!

Cabin in the Tetons. Bruce and John

This was also a big boy!

I love the jagged look of these peaks

On Oct 30, a hunter was mauled by a grizzly in this area. He had his pepper spray and did all of the right things and the bear left him. The man was pretty scraped up but didn't die.

We decided that this famous barn was famous because of the mountains behind it not necessarily because of the barn itself.They haven't had much snow yet, so the elk haven't moved down. The hunters aren't too happy and the ski resorts aren't either. They are making snow!

You can go into this little church. Bruce joked as he sat in the pew that it was the first time in quite awhile that he had sat in a church.