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Photo Gallery
Isn't this a great looking group? All the family came together for our 50th wedding anniversary.
Family at our 50th wedding anniversary, April 17, 1999. From left is Lee, Anne, Ed, Les, and Allyson.
Emily graduation from Baylor University, 2001
Hot-air Balloons Come to Waco
About 40 brightly colored hot-air balloons were in Waco for several days in August, 2001. They were competing in the North American Balloon Association's Heart of Texas national championships. Each day had to begin early because our daytime temperature was about 100 - and no letup in sight. The pilots had a weighted bag to drop on a designated target. Prize money of $40,000 was at stake.
We Love to Travel
Anne and I have enjoyed traveling to many parts of the world. It is because of the love of travel that I started a travel agency in 1989 and named it Focus on Travel. Since that time it has developed into a leading full-service agency in Waco, and highly respected. Having a travel agency helped me find some real bargains, while helping several thousand customers with their travel too. We especially enjoy going to England, Scotland, Alaska, and the Holy Land. We've been to each of these many times and are always ready to go again. Here are a few pictures we have taken.
Julie and Emily went with us on a trip to London in 2001. Here we are in front
of Buckingham Palace
Scenes from the Holy Land
View of the Old City of Jerusalem. Taken near the Garden of Gethsemene
The Wailing or Western Wall in Jerusalem. The only remaining
part of the Second Temple which was destroyed in 70 AD. Women pray on the right
and men on the left.
Bazaar in Jerusalem and part of the Via Dolorosa (Way of
Grief). The small shops play a large role in local commerce. Most are family run
and usually members from young to old are busy selling to tourists and local
residents
Modern day shepherds taking care of their flocks in Shepherds
Field outside Bethlehem.
People being baptized by immersion at the Yardenit Baptismal Site of the Jordan
River. Just a few miles south of the Sea of Galilee.
Scenes from Alaska
The Eisenhower Alaska Statehood Monument in Anchorage. Alaska became the 49th
state on January 3, 1959 during the Presidency of Eisenhower. It is two and a
half times larger than Texas in land area and now has over 625,000 residents.
The Alaska State Fair is held late in the summer at Palmer, just a few miles
north of Anchorage.
It does not get real dark from about May through August. With such long days of
sunlight the vegetables get huge. That's far more rutabaga than most people need
in a lifetime.
Beautiful flowers on the grounds of the Alaska State Fair.
The Alaskan buffalo is really huge.
The Alaska fireweed is a beautiful and common sight. This photo was taken near Mt. McKinley. The natives say the height of the fireweed in the summer predicts how deep the snow will be in the winter.
Mt. McKinley, in the Denali National Park and Preserve, rising to an altitude of 20,300 feet is the highest peak in the North America continent. This gigantic mountain is two-thirds enveloped in snow the year round. Two of my favorite memories are the times when I stood on 4th Avenue in Anchorage, looked north to see the top of Mt. McKinley, snow covered and majestic, reaching toward the heavens. It is very rare for the atmosphere to be clear enough for such a view.
The moose is another common sight. When the weather is severe they even come into small towns and large cities looking for something to eat. Housewives have been known to chase them out of the yard with a broom and a few words of advice.
A double-decker bus in Skagway where a thousand or less people live the year round. During the summer it is a regular port of call for cruise ships. About 300,000 people visit them each summer.
During the very cold winter of 1897-98 gold prospectors came to Skagway by the thousands. Within three months of the first gold strike the settlement grew from one cabin to over 20,000 people. They got their gear together and began the treacherous trek into the mountains and along the Klondike rivers. Camp Skagway No. 1 is a reminder of those early days.
Pioneer Park near the main part of Skagway. It is a lovely and well laid out tribute to the early settlers.
Like most places, Skagway now has an outlet store. It is rustic looking on the outside, but modern when you go in to make your purchases.
College Fjord was discovered by the Harriman Expedition in 1899. There are sixteen glaciers, each named after an Ivy League college. The glaciers are blue-white in color fill me with awe just to look at them.
A glacier calving. Gigantic chunks of ice break, the size of large buildings, break off and float away. It is exciting to watch this act of nature take place. Eventually it will melt as it floats toward the open waters.
An ice berg floating past our cruise ship at 11PM. Probably 90 percent of the ice is under water, so it is easy to see how large it is.
Ketchikan, the Southernmost Alaska city, is a port of call for most all the cruise lines. A city of about 9000 people is described as "five miles long, four blocks wide, and two blocks up Deer Mountain." It rains a lot here - around 13 feet in the year, making it the wettest city in North America.
One of the many totem poles in the Ketchikan community. Totem poles depict stories, designate clans, and provide history of native tribes. A main tribe in Ketchikan is the Tlingit, pronounced KLINK-it.