Notes from Puzzle Palace

Thursday, February 9, 2023

A day with Wayne Daniel and a short drive

We spent a night in Delta Colorado after I crossed the Rockys.  What a disaster.  We got to the motel at 6pm and the main office was closed!  There was a sign that said to call and they would get us a key. No answer so then we saw another sign that basically told us to drive across town to a different motel and they would give us the keys. Sigh.  An hour later, we were in the room with an Arby's sandwich, some vegan muffins, a bottle of wine and a can of beer. Did I mention that the restaurants in town all close at 8pm? No matter, the water was hot and the bed was comfortable.  

The next morning we woke up and headed out again early. First stop was the post office to drop off some postcards for my nephews.  Ah!  Anyone who is wanting to make the day of a few children, please consider posting a post card to one of the teachers on the list below. My nephews school is doing a thing and they sure would appreciate the cards.


We drove about 20 minutes to Wayne Daniel's house and met with him, his wife, son and daughter-in-law.  We spent a few hours at their house. George and Peggy talked about our trip and mutual friends we will meet.  They are now pushing the high 90's and won't be doing much visiting so Peggy was all ears about this.  We even promised to send quite a few photos to her along the way.

After a brief tour of the house (what a beautiful kitchen!) We went into the puzzle room.  Here I took photos a plenty, and then Wayne and I disassembled a puzzle or two.  My first of course was the all 5. He had 8 of them in the room!  Beautiful pieces. 



























The next puzzle we disassembled was unknown to me and boy I didn't want to but he said go for it.  An hour later George and Wayne had it put back together.  A round of applause and a big cheer went up when that happened.  I saw them do the jiggle technique to finish it though.


We then went out into the workshop where we saw his much reduced space.  Even so, it's quite impressive.  













George took a short video of Wayne talking about his former life and we saw the wonderful train set he and his son Brian were working on over the winter.  
After a nice chat, we went to lunch with everyone and had a little bit longer chat.  Sadly, I wanted to get moving and (again) across the mountain passes before dark (do you see a pattern here?). When we left Wayne gave us 2 puzzles for the museum (which of course are in the car and at 21 degrees, I'm not going to go get them). Again, it was a wonderful visit with some great people. We spent about 3 hours with them, and given aging and nap times (George's, no one else's) it was just enough. As always though, I would have liked to have had more time.

The drive again was wonderful.  We drove on I 50 to Selena where we stopped at a Super 8 for the night.  $61 with breakfast.  You can't go wrong with that.  No hot water, and the heater doesn't really heat up, but hey.  The beds are comfortable and the internet works well enough for me to post this.  What more can we ask for? At dinner, we went to a Mexican restaurant near the hotel.  It really was a good meal.
No alcohol. Well duh Roxanne, you are in Utah. Thank goodness for that bottle of wine I bought last night. 

The drive over was amazing!  Yet again.  When I think of Utah, I think of ... nothing.  I had no idea it was this beautiful.  I pulled over on every lookout area to stop and take in the views.  I do hope my nephews classes are following this because the photos are stunning.  I never knew how beautiful this country was until this trip.  I've driven across I 80 and all over the south, but I guess I just never saw it before.  On this trip I finally opened my eyes.  I was constantly pointing out rock formations that reminded me of something else.  Again, I overload you with photos. 





























The reef fascinated me, but I just couldn't get a good photo of it.



The changes in the colors and textures of the rocks just amazes me.  I add a few of the signs from the stops here to peak the boys interest I hope. 






The next 2 days will find us driving across Utah, Nevada, and into California. Next stop?  Just outside of Giga Nevada! We've visited Shanghai and Freemont, might as well do Nevada because you know we are going to see the one in Texas.  That just leaves Berlin!  Yep.  It's on the list as well. 


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