Trip to Nauvoo

I just love the flowers and try to get good close up pictures were I go. I'm going to do a wall with flowers on it when I get back to AD.

I love verbena flowers, the purple one. I used to plant those in my flower beds when I lived in a house that had real dirt.

This is the temple there. It is very pretty and very peace full there.

We walked to the Road of Hope and went to the edge of the road to where the river had gotten to that day. Sam had a headache that day so he was tired. (He had a severe case of jet lag)We headed back and ran into more detours and took another way around back to Muscatine and we had gotten about 5 miles from the town and had to turn around and go back clear to the Illinois border and go back how we came. We were late to the big dinner that night but had gotten there in time for Sam to receive his 10 year service award. ( He said he wouldn't be getting anything that night at the dinner so I didn't take my oops his camera. So I didn't get a picture of one the crowning moments. He was also made VP in the company over the weekend conference also. So all the long hours, lack of sleep, stress and with all the patience that any man I know has is paying off for him in his career. My job there is to keep healthy food in him and to make him sleep when possible.

Flooding in Mucatine, Iowa

Sam met me in Muscatine on June 12 for the annual Muscatine Stanley Conference. The mid west was in the middle of some serious flooding along some side rivers and the mighty Mississippi River. It water looked strong and very fast moving in the rivers. Lots of roads were closed as each day went along. What was open the day before was closed the next.

The next day in this parking lot it was under water.

And the water was almost up to the landing of the stairs here the next day.

We crossed the Mississippi River bridge into Illinois. We traveled to Navoo on Saturday and had to take the longggggggggggg way around. A normal trip would have taken an hour and it took over 3 hours to get there with the detours that we ran into along the way.

Cinque Terre, Italy

Cinque Terra was a fun place to see. I could have spent more time there but we were on a pretty strict train schedule and we pushed it to the last possible minute with a 9pm train strike starting that night.

The market in one of the villages. Everything was so small and compact. The colors were so bright and the old fashioned feel of everything was fun.

Me resting in between the walk to the next little city. My old hip was really screaming at me about now.

This is a map of were we were that day.

Genoa, Italy

Genova is a coastal city. It is about 2 hours by train from Milan. We spent 2 full days here seeing friends of Robbies and seeing the sights.

One of Robbie's good friends there is named Robbie also. He took us on a walking historical tour of Genoa. It was great. He is a diehard Genoeise. Robbie works for the city during the day and is a famous opera singer at night. Everyone knew him as we walked and talked all afternoon. It was so much fun. We had lunch at his house earlier in the day. His mother "Nonna" (grandma)was the reason Robbie gained so much weight during his stay there. He loved going to his house and eating the real Italian food that she cooked.

Close to the end of the tour Robbie announced that the building behind us was the most famous building in the city. This is were he was born. I found it fitting to post the photo and honor the place of his birth. Thank you Robbie for a great day in your city.

A great photo opportunity. The flowers were so pretty and fun to take picutures of.

The winner in Varese

Lots of people and lots of cheering going on. The streets were about 20 deep with people and I couldn't see over the high fence they had so I got on Robbie's shoulders and snapped these photo's. It was a little scary up there and I'm sure it wasn't a pretty sight but we got good picutures. Yea!!!!!!

The famous photo op for winners of bike races, as they come across the finish line. Jens Voight

The leader of the Tour on day 17 of the 21 day race. Alberto Contador who is from Spain.

The Giro Italia...

As most of you all know we are big biking fans in our family. Robbie planned out my trip very carefully around the different stages of the Tour so that "we" would have the chance to see something like this. It was very exciting and fun to watch. The crowds were very loud and were cheering the countymen on to win the race. This picture was before the riders came through the first time.

This was the chase pack in the last lap of the Varese stage. Pretty exciting stuff. This is what you would watch on TV, and we were right there.

This is the peliton pack coming through. In the last lap is when you will see riders from this group coming up on the leaders for the day and try to steal a win at the last second.

If you look closely in this picture you will see the winners of the race on the last day. The rider in the pink was Alberto Contodour the winner of the "Tour de France". The rider in the middle is Ricco the one that came in second on the last day of the race.

Look who we found in Varese!!!!!

We found some hungry young men there. We had a nice lunch downtown with these two. They were chatting with Robbie about old friends and finding out who is still there and what they were doing. I have pictures to send to these two guys moms. I remember a few years back someone sent me a picture of Robbie doing the same thing. I loved it.