since Susan Graf did her Alaska story I thought I would add mine. Flew in to Vancouver with wife and 3 sons 16, 18, 20 and HAD to take Limo from airport because no taxis take 5, very hard, felt repressed, shaved off beard while there, had a flash while landing to do that, and spent 5 days bicycling, sightseeing, a bit of gambling, and walking on beaches, some clothing optional ones near the Univ. but not many females to see, drat.

Vancouver is VERY nice. Got on Royal Caribbean for 5 jewelry selling stops in Juneau, Ketchican, and three other stops, etc. Saw killer whales, seals, pristine nature, incredible skies and vistas, learned a lot of history, lore, etc., glaciers calving up close, two scary river rafting past where 3-4000 eagles descent to fatten up in Nov. only saw 25. Saw salmon up close and dying spawning and torn up ones from bears on bank near dark woods. Played with some bear cubs and petted the mom, she was nice. Cold water everywhere, death in 5 minutes, comforting as we cruised hither and yon, Spent a night in Seward, nice aquatic center, scenic bus to Anchorage, shopping at local market stalls, spent night there and scenic train out the next AM, to Denali. Stayed outside for 5 days with kids horseback riding and taking helicopters (not me! already jumped out of them) etc. very scenic, then bused into deepest denali (expensive) lodges, you will never guess who intentionally pushed me HARD (intentionally, I needed to say that twice) down in the bus aisle as we stopped for first of 15 bear sightings on the way in. All I remember is the look of terror on the young kids face as I was about to fall right on top of him with camera in hand, time slowed down (those 7 yr olds move quick, especially when seeing huge falling adults headed their way) I was in shock for days. Still am. LOL No cellphones/internet, hello!?!

Discovered new family board game called Wits n Wagers to keep painful withdrawal at bay for our zombie apocalyptic's electronic kids. Son and I went gold panning with mosquitos but threw the smaller nuggets back in the creek for the less fortunate. That is where the first gold strike happened. Never saw McKinley. Took train back to Anchorage and 7 hr flt back to Houston. Won't tell you about "the bad parts." LOL. Weather was unusually warm 80 degrees, and no rain to speak of, so if you are going next yr, go later July -- Early Aug. Saw lots of joking t shirts and signs showing how Texas fits so nicely inside Alaska's borders. Next summer we go back to Kauai and the Big Island / Waikoloa before 2015 when Bill Rye the science guy says "You won't be able to swim in Hawaii anymore because of Fukushima radiation lighting up the water!" yum..

Afterwards we deposited son Daniel as freshman at Colo State before floods and some kid made a free throw from mid court to win a year's free $6700 tuition, it was on ESPN. Nice place Ft. Collins, who knew??? Went to lunch on a whim to Laramie WY 45 min away. Nice small college town 14000. Never been to colo or wyo. Was looking for Cheney.

On another front ..... I know you will think I am crazy (well you knew I was anyway, LOL) and Greg asked me if I really wanted to put the following in, so I said yes go for it. And after deleting my more wild rantings I left the following:

I was never a conspiracy nut but my wife last Oct had us reading a UU church bookgroup book on the 911 conspiracy ( which I don't buy and didn't finish ) and it had a one liner in there about "George Bush not remembering where he was when he heard the JFK had been assassinated." Whoa? Who among us can't remember that?

Hello?

Anyway I googled that and it led to the blog site LBJBushNixonkilledJFK and I saw this old woman in her yard talking about how much she loved that man Lyndon, father of her son, and how LBJ grabbed her by the shoulders at a party the night before in Dallas and told her that after tomorrow those SOB Kennedy's will never embarrass me again. And later on new yrs eve when they were shacked up in Austin she asked him if he was involved in JFKs assassination directly and he jumped out of bed and slammed the wall and said "no, it was those TX oilmen and Eastern Bankers." (David & Nelson Rockefeller) And I was off to the races because I was from Lexington Mass before Stony Brook. They shot my president and our then senator. hello? Why? It was never explained to us. Nixon said the Warren Commission was the greatest fraud ever perpetuated on the Am. people. He and Hoover used to stay in a CA seafront $100/night 1950s hotel owned by the guy who owned the TX Schoolbook depository, Clint Murchison. Murchison managed Hoover's investments. What did they talk about? Hoover and LBJ walked to work together for years in DC. Kennedy was going to pull out of Vietnam, make peace with Russia, take away the Feds ability to print $, and remove the Oil depletion allowance, and take LBJ off the ticket. George Bush's father lost a lot of land in Cuba in the revolution. What did daddy Prescott Bush (who put Eisenhower and Nixon in office) and son George talk about in the late 50s early 60s? (Nixon probably promised Prescott Bush that he would go into Cuba with american troops for the bay of pigs after he was elected in 1960 and get Prescott's land back.) Son George worked for CIA running assassination squads against Castro in 60's, that were retasked to Dallas, while serving as a disguised failure TX oilman friend of Murchison.. It's all there. LBJ was going to be dropped from the 64 ticket after being indicted by Bobby for Tx ag scams. They killed an A&M prof who uncovered the scams shot 5 times with a rifle in the woods and called a suicide.) Hoover was listening to Bobby and JFK talk and warned LBJ. LBJ killed 19 people including his sister and husband. Well, read it yourself. I was never a conspiracy buff but this JFK thing always bothered me. Why were my teachers comng down the hall crying in 5th grade? Anyway, with the 50th anniv upcoming shortly in Nov. I thought I would mention it in case any of you are still wondering why and how. And now in our retirements some have extra time to investigate the truth. There is a pic of Bush that AM on the steps of the TX sch Book Depository, he was running interference in case any of his people were picked up. His team went out the back in a white station wagon, nicaraguan shooter who didn't know who he was shooting, paid with group the night before after party. And an FBI memo from the night before says Bush called in with info about a student threatening the President, and that he would be in Dallas at the Sheraton. Now we know why Bush does not remember where he was. E Howard Hunt told his son on his death bed "yes, we did it." 2nd shot. He was an arrested bum, of 3, on the knoll, later ordered into Watergate because Nixon thought the Dems had info about Dallas. There is so much more. It all makes sense now. Won't bore you, but do you remember seeing Bobby in Senate when we were there, and 3 months later he was gone. Hoover did that too because he would have been fired the day after RFK's inauguration. Sirhan Sirhan was triple hypnotized but now photos show more bullets and bullet holes than was possible with just Sirhan's gun. Lots of very juicy stuff in links from blog site. Does anyone care? I still do, and now it all makes sense. Do the American people need to correct their history? Can they take it? hm. Bush said if the American people ever found out what we did they would chase us down the street and lynch us. 25 guys in a room the night before in Dallas, the weather go -- no go decision mtg. Honoring hoover, at Murchison's house, where they had champaign and caviar parties all the next week as the country mourned, 2 staff said, wondering "why these people were so happy?". Nixon got out of Dallas as fast as he could the next morning to NYC before the shots and then lied about being in Dallas. Then said ooops I forgot the Pepsi convention. Check it out. Made me feel ill when I found out the extent of the group involved. LBJ accidently told interviewer two weeks later that "We have to find more out about Oswald and those other guys" Then told interviewer to cut all after Oswald for national security purposes. Hoover sends memo to CIA George Bush 2 days after. George Bush denies forever after that he was ever in the CIA, even during CIA director confirmation hearings. Does anyone care? We should. apologies. enough.

Jim --- the new conspiracy (AKA Truth") nut

Perhaps now Greg will let others flash their asses on their favorite nutty stories and jazz up our monthly postings so we can laugh at each other , more..... smiles. We have gone through some sparse months, now we can have a comedy monthly email... LOL He She said WHAT???????????????