Hi Rick! I can send you the first description if it is the one that suggests someone could please make a copy for LeAnne?. I thought I had just typed a note with the Dean & Gary, and the Dean, Don & Gary and Linda with her girls ones, and started what we called the first installment at Niagara Falls - This trip was NOT the way to see the world. It is the way to be sure you see some of the things you've always wanted to see if you're not sure you'll get another chance. We saw about all the people we had hoped to see except Ben Hanson. The weather cooperated wonderfully and we were just ahead of or just behind storms in almost every case and had mostly sunshine with just a couple of overcast days. We stopped at Sturgis (Michigan, not Dakota). It's the home of the factory that builds most of the U.P.S. and FedEx trucks and Gary has a son in law who drives for U.P.S.. If you haven't seen Niagara Falls - do go up the Canadien side. It is so-o special. They seem to think the river side should belong to the public. And private property (tho' sometimes quite extravagant with mansions and extensive grounds), must be on the other side of the road. The river side is sometimes just grass, well groomed, but frequently little parks with docks and trees and benches. And the falls themselves are HUGE. You really can not imagine until you stand in (and cannot escape), the wind and rain off of the falls, even on such a beautiful sunshiny day. We had been next to Portland, Oregon when Rick and Donna were out to Washington, and now we have gone all the way to Portland, Maine just three weeks later (amazing, from ocean to ocean in that short of a time span). The New England states had a late Fall color change due to the lovely mild summer. But, we saw so many mansions (including the main factory and fancy homes of the people who started the famous Welch's grape juice), on their wonderful narrow, winding roads with rock fences, rock retaining walls, rock fireplace chimneys and just plain old rocks here and there. They are so well endowed with good rock that they do not have concrete curbing - it all seems to be granite (on bridges, on sidewalks, on freeways). Most of the houses, even the fancy ones, are in the salt box style. The biggest ones do have pillars, but amazingly few porches are to be seen. Doing Cape Cod was so-o special. We spent a night at Provincetown on the very tip of the Cape, and then drove through many of the little, and not so little, villages (like Hyannis Port), on the Atlantic side, on our way back out to visit the famous Plymouth Rock and the replica of the Mayflower that floats in their harbor. And if we thought the special houses in the rest of New England were big - ! And then we found a little restaurant with the very best clam chowder either of us had ever sampled (almost right across the road from Plymouth Rock). Now we must go through the traffic capital of the world to get to our next stop, New York, New York. In order for Gary to actually enjoy the sights, we stay on Long Island and take the Long Island Railway into town. We met a most lovely Polish lady, who's stepfather had helped them escape the German invaders during the II World War by way of Turkey. They eventually ended up in Hawaii and so were allowed to enter the States at California. She told us how to manage the New York bus system and said "never take the subways - they are too dangerous". So much to see here it is mind boggling. We started at the Empire State Building (not only to be there, but also to get our bearings). You can see the Statue of Liberty (way in the distance), the United Nations Building, Hackensack, New Jersey, Times Square, Central Park, The Hudson, the East River (and we joked about every green penthouse rooftop being the little golf course Regis says he had installed :-). Then we walked through Times Square, past Madison Square Garden, down theatre row , and took a bus to Central Park. We saw the Guggenheim and the Jaqueline Kennedy reservoir, and lots of the famous stores on 5th Avenue - Bergdorf Goodman and Saks, etc. (we had already walked on the entrance apron of the original Macy's which is close to Times Square). The trip out of New York is also traffic, traffic and more traffic all the way to Washington, D.C. We did go to Jones Beach on Long Island before we left (a man of vision planned to make this area an escape for the great city he expected New York to become and it is quite unbelievable the boulevards and stone bridge overpasses and recreational facilities with acres of parking). We crossed Staten Island, drove over the Verrazano Narrows and went on south toward Washington, D.C. I think I must do this in installments or surely you will all get tired of reading, and I will fall asleep at the keyboard. Good night for now and much love, Connie & Gary