Our year has been a busy one for both of us..
Frank continues to volunteer at Manassas National Battlefield Park, as a computer specialist. In January he was made an Honorary Park Ranger, which is the highest civilian award the Park Service can present.
Here Frank is being presented the award by the future (now current) director of the National Park Service, Robert Stanton.
There have been only 115 of these awards in the history of the Park Service, with such names on the list as Lady Bird Johnson, Ansel Adams, Bill Clinton, Arthur Feidler, and President John F. Kennedy, to name a few.
His duties at the park include taking care of the park's computers and networks, teaching classes in Microsoft programs, occasionally helping the maintenance staff with electrical and telephone problems, and his current favorite, next to the computers, the park's world wide web pages. In the last 4 years Frank has put in over 5,000 hours at the park.
Tom continues his work at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) at Tyson's Corner. He has completed his thirteenth year there and is rushing headlong into the fourteenth. It seems that only yesterday he retired from the Army. SAIC is the largest employee-owned company in the US with over 25,000 employees. The company recently purchased Network Solutions, Inc, the company that assigns Internet addresses, as well as BellCore, the company previously known as Bell Laboratories, the telephone research and development folks. Tom enjoys his work and the people he works with. During the past year Tom has principally worked on chemical warfare demilitarization projects and has provided input to the National Defense Panel which was a mandatory report to Congress. Additionally, he has done some work in the Defense Department's use of telemedicine, which will use satellite communication to transmit such things as digital radiology data directly from a battlefield's front lines to Walter Reed Medical Center for immediate evaluation of a patient.
By now, you may have guessed we are very much into digital photography. Our Kodak DC120 digital camera goes with us everywhere now.
In February we took another week-long winter vacation and drove to Maine to see the snow.
Scoodic point And, for the third year in a row, when we got there, all the snow had melted, but it was still beautiful.
This year Frank got a new full size 94 Bronco (right) to replace his ageing 88 Bronco II (left) which had 150,000 miles on it.
You can click here to go directly to our western trip photo index page or you can read on and click on the photos below to see each section.
In July we flew to Billings, Montana where we rented a car and drove to Yellowstone, passing through the Beartooth Wilderness north of Yellowstone National Park.
After 2 days in Yellowstone, we preceded south to Grand Teaton National Park for another 2 days of terrific scenery.
We happened through Steamboat Springs, Colorado on a day they were having a balloon fair. In total there must have been 15 or 20 balloons in the air.
This fall we said goodby to our dear friends Curt and Ellie, owners of the Country Waye campground in Luray. We have been camping there for nearly 10 years. We hope to see them again during some future travels. We said hello to the new owners of the campground,
Erich and Sulamith, who have become good friends.
We would like to leave you with this thought: When things don't work out or you just can't see the logic to a frustrating situation, remember, "If the world were logical, men would ride side saddle."