Who doesn't love a train ride?

Here we are at the end of our Boise trip as we rode the Thunder Mountain Train along the Payette River. My brother catered the lunch so we got comp tickets to enjoy the ride. We rode in an outside cart because it was such a beautiful day.

The view along the Payette river was so lush and serene. I miss mountains.

Big Mike had a chef at the lunch stop but he couldn't help but pitch in. Always on the job.

All along the river there were kayakers but wouldn't you know every time we wanted to get a picture, here come the trees. I was smiling the whole way home because the view was just so gorgeous...it just made me happy.

Big Mike and Tash posing in front of the caboose. She is little, isn't she?

Big Red and I doing the tourist thing and mugging for the camera. I didn't want to leave, I just wanted to ride the train all day. I was sad the day we had to leave because I miss seeing my brother. He has grown up so much and I wish we lived closer. But the return to Texas was inevitable and once we got to the airport it all went downhill from there.

Let me just give you the low lights: My glasses broke the minute we passed through security. Air Force One with President Obama aboard landed in Vegas same time we did hence making us sit out on the tarmac for a good 45 minutes (kinda cool actually). We were rerouted to Phoenix from Vegas because they cancelled our flight to San Antonio. We had to wait in Phoenix for hours because they could not find a plane to take us home. I called my parents to let them know about the delay and my dad told me Max had run away because of a severe thunderstorm. Once we got a flight to SA Red and I could not to sit together because the flight was full so I ended up next to a lovely young couple with a sweet baby who cried for the whole 2 hour flight.

We ended up coming in in the wee hours of morning and were thankful that by the time we came home Max was there waiting for us...muddy and scared but safe. Oh the drama...a crappy ending to an otherwise wonderful vacation. Max will now need doggy Prozac and therapy because we are horrible parents for leaving him so soon after Nani died. How were we to realize he would have such anxiety over us being gone a few days when my parents came over every day to take care of him? Needless to say we are looking for a dog trainer to help us figure out what we need to do to help him. I'm quite sure he will consume all our time until the guilt and or shame is gone.

K