Third floor gallery in the Blackburn Building
Spiral stair to the cupola
The Lofts & Penthouse. Note the location of the circular window.
Fountain and gazebo
The Penthouse
Here's the circular window again, in one of the penthouse bedrooms.
The penthouse patio
In March we traveled to Florida to watch a rocket launch at Kennedy Space Center. A SpaceX rocket launched the NROL-69 payload. We spent most of the day out at the launch viewing area.
In July, Preston and Jordan got engaged at the cabin in West Virginia. This picture was taken in Hawai'i Volcanoes Park in September.
At the end of September, we all traveled to the Big Island of Hawai'i. David and Kanoa were celebrating their 30th anniversary. The background of the front side of the card is sunset from the Royal Kona Hotel's oceanfront restaurant, where we stayed a couple of nights at the beginning of the 10-day trip.
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We attended the obligatory luau at the Hilton in Waikoloa. After a miscommunication about the time which led to a wait in the reception area, it was a nice time with good food and an entertaining show.
On September 29 we visited Hawai'i Volcanoes Park and were rewarded with volcanic activity at Kilauea.
On October 1 we traveled to Maunakea. All of us went to the visitor's center (at 9,200 feet above sea level), and later the guys drove up to the summit, which is over 13,000 feet above sea level, and attended a star talk at the visitor's center. Maunkea is home to several telescopes.
For the bulk of our trip we stayed at Castle Resorts' Hali'i Kai at Waikoloa.
We spent many mornings and evenings at the oceanfront pool and restaurant, where there was a nightly sunset ceremony.
After checking out of Hali'i Kai, David and I drove north from Waikoloa to Kapa'au in search of the famous statue of King Kamehameha I which is in front of the North Kohala Civic Center. We continued to drive the whole way around the island, stopping in Waimea for lunch, and then continuing to Hilo to walk in the Lili'uokalani Gardens before returning to Kona to spend one more night at the Royal Kona.
We enjoyed many other things on the big island such as touring a coffee farm, trekking to South Point, stopping at a local chocolate factory store, stumbling across a local farm store, and finding a great local beach to watch a final sunset.
We enjoyed many good meals. We enjoyed fine dining at Merriman's and a couple of local spots: Hawaiian Style Cafe (just down the road from Merriman's) and K's Drive-In near Hilo, and many types of restaurants in between.
In the fall Ian moved back to Virginia from Maryland and is currently working at a bakery in Warrenton. There were many other good times and fun events throughout the year, too many to include in a quick recap.
Hoping everyone has a merry Christmas! Here is our card from this year:
A little bit more about the pictures. In April we traveled to New York to see another total eclipse. As part of the trip we spent a few days in Cooperstown and visited the Baseball Hall of Fame. I got to see the San Diego Chicken! In May we enjoyed a lovely lunch and tour at Prince Michel with my mom and kids. The remainder of the pictures are from our anniversary trip in September, which we dubbed the Idaho Circumnavigation Tour. We flew to Salt Lake City and stayed overnight. The next day we drove east of the city to explore and ended up taking a tour of Olympic Park in Park City. Next we drove west past the Great Salt Lake into Nevada to spend a night. From there we drove north through Nevada (aka the surface of the moon) to Ontario, Oregon, to spend another night. The next day we headed for Idaho where we took in various sights in Twin Falls (the falls and Evel Knievel's ramp) before heading to Spokane, Washington. In Spokane we walked around Riverfront Park and ate lunch. Kanoa had visited this same park during a family trip to Idaho in elementary school and had fond memories of the Loof Carrousel. We continued on to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to visit Kanoa's cousins for a couple of days. We had dinner with them the first night and stayed overnight in the Northside School Bed & Breakfast, a former school converted into a wonderful B&B. After a delicious breakfast the next morning we met up with Kanoa's cousins to have lunch and hike to a few scenic locations. Following that we headed out to cross the border into Canada. We stayed for a few nights at Copper Point Resort in Invermere, British Columbia. While there we enjoyed obligatory Tim Horton's and traveled to Banff in Alberta (background picture as well as bottom center). Following a relaxing few days we drove south to Waterton Lakes for one night. In the morning we headed back across the border with Glacier National Park in Montana as our destination. We experienced the scenic drive through the park along the Going-to-the-Sun Road. After exiting the park, we traveled through a lot of great scenery and interesting towns to our overnight stop in Missoula, Montana. The next morning we got up to finish our last leg of the trip back to Salt Lake City. We spent one more night there and flew home the next day.
97/366 | Saturday, April 6, 2024 | #365PictureToday
Prompt Free
Today we visited the Baseball Hall of Fame. I found the San Diego Chicken!!!
95/366 | Thursday, April 4, 2024 | #365PictureToday
Your Favorite Color | Color Day
Purple is my favorite color, and I recently purchased this shirt. Maybe you can guess what we're preparing to do.
53/366 | Thursday, February 22, 2024 | #365PictureToday
A Coin
I found the coins from some of my travels to other countries and the pouch where they have been kept. It looks like most of these coins are from Mexico and Canada. I think there are some from France which had to come from my parents because I've never been there.
32/366 | Thursday, February 1, 2024 | #365PictureToday
Frame From Video
This picture was taken in December when we traveled to Tuscaloosa for our son's graduation from the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!). We found this terrific river walk along the Black Warrior River to while away some time in between checking out of our hotel and the departure of the train. I saw this boat and tracked it along the river until I found a shot that I liked.
After another interim of a few years, we have finally gotten our act together again to send out cards. Our adventures this year included (from top), a visit to Fort Necessity in September, Preston's graduation from the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!) in December, a trip to Lake Gaston in June, visiting Polymath Park and touring Frank Lloyd Wright's Mantyla (Lindholm House) and a bucket list trip to Fallingwater for our anniversary in September, and a few trips to Colonial Williamsburg (including one in which we stayed in the historic Chiswell-Buscktrout House in July). We hope that everyone had a merry Christmas and we wish you abundant blessings in the new year!
~David & Kanoa
353/365 | Tuesday, December 19, 2023 | #365PictureToday
Boost
350/365 | Saturday, December 16, 2023 | #365PictureToday
Anticipate
Patterns | Guest Prompt
The patterns on this building under construction in Tuscaloosa caught my eye. It made me wonder what it was eventually destined to look like.
348/365 | Thursday, December 14, 2023 | #365PictureToday
Cheer
Today we left for a quick trip to Alabama for our son's graduation from the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!). When we made plans for the trip, we decided to make it relaxing and made reservations on Amtrak.
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