Photos from the Popcorn Fest Party at Pikk’s Tavern

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There is a good chance you have heard of Orville Redenbacher and his famous popcorn, but did you know he was from Valparaiso, IN? In 1979 Valparaiso had their first Valparaiso Popcorn Festival to salute Redenbacher and popcorn. This is a two day event with a parade, a 5 mile run and other festivities. As my transportation is limited and the downtown streets are closed off, I once again missed the actual event. However, one of my favorite Valparaiso eateries, Pikk’s Tavern had a Popcorn Fest Party with musical entertainment. After leaving the hot air balloon festival we headed downtown …

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Photos of the 21st annual Kiwanis Hot Air BalloonFest

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These photos are from the 21st annual Kiwanis Hot Air BalloonFest at the Porter County Fairgrounds in Valparaiso, Indiana. I was here for last year’s event and enjoyed it thoroughly, so I hoped the weather would allow the event to go as planned. It was scheduled to be a two day event, September 9 and 10, however the weather on Friday did not look like it was going to cooperate, so I did not bother going there. Saturday was dry and not much wind, but the visibility was limited so the balloons did not seem to go as far as …

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Back to Indiana

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I am back for what will likely be one of my last visits to Indiana. After a long train ride from Los Angeles, Tanya picked up Buddy and me at the Chicago Union Station. Our first stop on the way back to Valparaiso was to the town of Munster and Three Floyds Brew Pub. I discovered this place back in June and immediately fell in love with their beer. I can not say that I have tried any of their brews that I did not like. Since no visit to Valpo would be complete without a visit to Don Quijote …

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A ride on the Southwest Chief

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Buddy and I needed to come back to Indiana for a while, so we decided to take Amtrak’s Southwest Chief from Los Angeles to Chicago. I have ridden Amtrak from Los Angeles to San Diego, and a few times in the Netherlands, but this was definitely the longest train ride I had ever taken. I was looking forward to the adventure since I have driven between CA and IN numerous times in the last few years. I figured that the train would take us through some scenery I had not seen yet and it would provide for some excellent photo …

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Asperatus and storm clouds

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The other day, someone made a comment about a photo I had posted on Google+. It was of a cloud formation that I had seen in North Dakota or Montana. They informed me that the photo was of the newly named Asperatus variety. She sent me a link to a Youtube video and a website that is all about cloud appreciation. I was surprised that the clouds were something new because I saw them all across the country when I was following storms. I soon recognized that when I saw them, some very foul weather was to follow. I noticed …

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Photos from Antelope Island State Park

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Anyone that has followed my blog for a while has figured out that I have pretty much fallen for Utah. If they had an ocean I might consider living there. As Brett and I left Idaho I called Tanya to have her see what was coming up. I knew that if we veered too far off I-15 there was a great chance that I would not make it to LAX the following night. I had never followed I-15 past Salt Lake City, so I did not know what was in store for us. As it turns out, the Great Salt …

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Photos from Idaho

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We woke up Wednesday in Jackson Hole, WY. I had less than 40 hours before I had to be at LAX to pick up Tanya. Home was about 1,000 miles from here, if we took the long way. It should not be a problem. It was very overcast in Jackson Hole, but that made for some great photo ops when we got to the mountains overlooking the Snake River and what I think was Swan Valley. We headed into Idaho Falls, where I got to attend my first live cattle auction. After leaving the auction we found out where Idaho …

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Photos from Grand Teton National Park

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Shortly after exiting the south gate of Yellowstone we entered Grand Teton National Park. I must admit, I fully expected Yellowstone National Park to be the highlight of this trip. In fact, I changed our route a couple of times to make sure that we got as much of Yellowstone as possible. After visiting the Tetons, I decided that they were the most beautiful part of the journey. My only regret was that we were running out of sunlight, so did not really get to explore much. I will change that as soon as possible. We ended the day in …

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Yellowstone National Park

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Shortly after leaving Cody and the Buffalo Bill Dam we entered Yellowstone National Park’s East Entrance. I had not visited Yellowstone since I was a youngster, maybe 45 years ago. Since Yellowstone is extremely large and we only had one day to see as much as we could, we took the long way around the park. From the east entrance we drove alongside Yellowstone Lake to the Fishing Bridge junction. After a nice lunch we took Grand Loop Road to Canyon Village, across to Madison then dropped down to Old Faithful and eventually out the south entrance leading to the …

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Cody and the Buffalo Bill Dam

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We ended day four and began day five in Cody, WY. On the way to the Cody Rodeo the night before, we noticed what looked like an old frontier town in the fields between Cody and Stampede Park. We decided to check it out the next morning. It turned out being the Old Trail Town which was the original townsite of Cody, which was named after William F. (“Buffalo Bill”) Cody. If you are into Old West artifacts, you will definitely appreciate a stop by Old Trail Town. After leaving the city limits and heading into the mountains we came …

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