North to Alaska

It would be fun to actually go to Alaska again! I have been working on "trip reports" from the big western trips that I took in the early part of the decade. These are in the spirit of my AT journal, but without the embedded images - too much work to put in all the pics and get the layout to work correctly. I added lots of links to pictures of the places I visited, mostly other people's pics, since I did not have a digital camera at the time. The pic shown here is mine though - the sign is at the southern end of the Cassiar Highway in British Columbia.

Links to my trip reports:

My main travel page

2000 trip - Rocky Mountain, Tetons, and Isle Royale

2001 trip - Glacier National Park and the White Mountains

2002 trip - Alaska

Calista is 6 months old!

Calista's 6-month birthday was yesterday, July 28th. She is getting very active, and it seems she will be ready to crawl soon. We went camping last weekend at Elizabeth Furnace, in the George Washington National Forest just west of Shenandoah. This was Calista's first 2-night camping trip. We camped with friends Christel and Nathaniel, and did some hiking and swimming. Calista enjoyed her first ride in the baby backpack, and even fell asleep in it.

We have some new pictures online. The 6-months shots have not been great so far, so I am trying to get some more today. For now: updates to Calista's July page and the new Elizabeth Furnace page.

First feeding

Calista had her first taste of "solid" food in her high chair yesterday. It was rice cereal mixed with milk, so it's not really all that solid. She was very funny about it -- seemed interested in the food and the taste, but insisted on grabbing the spoon and would not let go. We had been warned by a friend at church that if 10% of the food stayed in her mouth we would be doing well . . . and against that standard I think we fared quite well.

We have some more pics of the "feeding" as well as some 5-month shots and others from the past few weeks on our photo site.