Alaska
Cruise, Summer 2001
Meg and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a land tour and cruise of Alaska
On the Road with Elizabeth and Joe: Our Drive from Phoenix to Huntsville
In July of 1997 Elizabeth and I drove from Phoenix to Alabama. On this trip we drove through the white sands of White Sands, stopped in Roswell to check for aliens, visited the site of the bombed out Federal Building in Oklahoma City, listened to the blues in Memphis, and generally enjoyed each other's equally but differently bizarre world view. Did you know there is really a town in the Texas panhandle called Bovine? Guess what Elizabeth ate in Amarillo? Join us as we relive this fun trip.
Our Trip Through the Panama Canal
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Elizabeth is 21 and is in her senior year at Birmingham Southern
College. She is majoring in biology and hopes to pursue graduate studies in neuroscience
research. Elizabeth studied in Japan for the second semester of her sophomore
year, at Kansai Gaidai University near Osaka. She lived with a Japanese family
and was immersed in Japanese language and culture. She was able to visit
traditional sites of ancient temples and ultramodern sites including the
Japanese Disneyland. She relearned the art of bicycle riding, and rode the
bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka. You can see some of her photographs at http://panther.bsc.edu/~elmannin/japan
.
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Christopher is 18 and is a senior at Catholic High
School in Huntsville. CJ, as he prefers to be called, is
very involved in music. He plays string bass with the University of
Alabama-Huntsville jazz ensemble. He is the youngest member of the UAH jazz
ensemble, and one of their feature players. CJ hopes to major in music
performance in college. He also is a talented artist, and excels in math.
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Meg's yarn store, Yarn Expressions, is doing very well. The store specializes in high-quality knitting yarns and patterns and offers a full range of service, from informal help over tough parts of a project to classes and repair service. She has expanded her internet and mail-order business, and advertises in national knitting publications.
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Joe works for Gleason Research Associates, under contract to
the Army. His group develops detailed missile system computer
simulations that are used for applications like performance assessment,
training, and mission planning. His specialty is development of
models of the environment and of countermeasures such as smoke.
Joe is an active musician. He plays upright and electric bass with Rick Jobe and Tuxedo Junction, a band that plays jazz and oldies rock for wedding receptions and corporate and private parties. He sometimes plays upright bass with Swing Toujours, an acoustic and western swing band featuring four-time Tennessee fiddle champion and Nashville recording artist Jim Wood. Joe also plays with the contemporary Christian band Grateful Live. Joe is principal bassist for the Valley Community Orchestra, which performed the Messiah with the Madison Community Chorus in December 2001, and the musical Annie in spring 2002. And finally, Joe sings and plays with One Human Family, part of a national organization of nondenominational, all-inclusive gospel choirs. Web sites for some of these bands are at http://rickjobe.com .
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Alex
and Rusty are the two Manning dogs. Alex is named after the TV dog that poured beer for his
master. His hobby is
eating ham sandwiches. Alex is mostly border collie, and he likes nothing better
than to herd all the people in the house into one room.
We're not sure just what Rusty is, but she is our good friend, and she protects us from people who would ring our doorbell. She says she did NOT steal that loaf of French bread, and you can't prove it.
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