About That Mount Rushmore (May 22 - 28)

Dear Family and Friends,

We stayed for part of the week at Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, South Dakota. It was great to see and hear the B1 bomber. I am filled with much gratitude for the young men and women serving in the Air Force and for those family members that support them. How thrilling to hear Retreat and then The Star Spangled Banner at 5 pm every day!

Sunday, May 22nd, found us at Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial and Custer State Park. The pictures say it better than I can.

Bear and Roger are looking forward to seeing Mt. Rushmore!

This shot is taken at the artist's studio where the original sculpture model is located. You can barely see George Washington's face. Notice how it is lined up with the actual sculpture on the mountain.

Mountain goats live around the area.

Buffalo Stew with quite a view!

 The Crazy Horse memorial where the Oglala Lakota warrior, Crazy Horse, is honored.  This is a work in progress. To give you an idea of the scope of this work, Mount Rushmore fits in Crazy Horse's forehead. You can see what a mammoth undertaking this is.

Custer State Park gave us the opportunity to view wildlife in a protected environment. The park is known for their buffalo herd. We were lucky to see lots of calves with their mothers. We also saw burros and deer.

Bear loves sightseeing! 

On Wednesday, May 25, we left Rapid City and drove across South Dakota on Interstate 90 to Sioux Falls. There we turned south on Interstate 29 to Omaha, where we stayed at Offutt Air Force Base. The drive across South Dakota was beautiful. With so much rain, all parts of the State are green. 

Thursday, May 26, we left Nebraska, for Parsons, Kansas, where Roger has very strong ties.  His favorite Aunt Ruth and Uncle Jud have a 30 amp electric plug  for us outside of their home so that is where we are staying until Tuesday.  On our drive to Parsons, we took a break along the Missouri River. To our amazement, this was the sight where Lewis and Clark made one of their stops on their expedition. The pictures below show the bluff where you can observe the Missouri River.

Roger's Uncle Jud and Aunt Ruth in the Tour.

Koko, you had better watch out! Bear has fallen for Patty!

Thank you for following our adventures on the blog. We will stay in Parsons until Tuesday and then head over to Lake Stockton in Missouri. We are looking forward to a slower pace for several weeks.

About That Winnebago Tour (May 19 - 21)

Dear Family and Friends,

You will notice an absence of the Jayco Embark picture on the heading of this post! As I said in the previous post, we have purchased a Winnebago Tour. The Tour is a class A bus that is 42 feet long. It is much more conducive to full time rving and much easier to drive. We discovered it in Longmont and have spent the past three days, buying and moving into it. After a final walk through and after one more night in Longmont, we left Colorado for South Dakota on the 21st.

Our drive took us from Colorado to Cheyenne on Interstate 25. We stopped and fueled the Tour and headed on to Torrington and then to Rapid City, South Dakota. Along the way we admired the beautiful broad plains and then rolling hills of Wyoming and South Dakota. Calving season recently happened as there were many calves in the fields.



                                                         Our 2011 Winnebago Tour

Three slides including one full wall slide.

Moving is tough on the guys!

Bear wants to take you on a tour of the interior.

Can you believe a fireplace is in this coach?

This picture, with the slides in, is how the Tour looks when we travel.

 Roger is fueling with the big boys (truckers). Oh yeah, we are the big boys now!

Roger driving down the highway.

The beautiful plains and distant buttes of Wyoming.

Yes, it was a rainy drive.

Those driving lessons in Yuma really paid off.

Sunday is our trip to Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial and Custer State Park. Thank you for following our adventures.  I appreciate your comments on the blog.

About Those Rockies

Hello Friends and Family,

We left Moab on Saturday, bound for Glenwood Springs. Driving on 70, we found the landscape changing drastically from the red rocks of Moab.

 Bear always begs to ride up on my seat. Now that he is 27 pounds, he rarely gets the chance!

We reached our site at River Dance RV on the outskirts of Glenwood Springs, in the early afternoon. That left plenty of time for exploring. Our site was close to the river with the Rockies foothills in the background.

 Roger is taking a moment to check in with friends and family. We love having our cell phones, laptops, and IPads with us on our adventures.

We left River Dance early Sunday morning to continue our drive along 70 to Longmont, Colorado, where we planned to have routine maintenance performed on the Embark.
I must admit that the Rockies are truly my favorite mountains in the world. I first saw them with my parents and siblings when we started skiing in the early sixties. Roger and I have taken our boys skiing in several Colorado areas and it was so much fun to do some "remembering" as we drove along 70.

Snow capped mountain peaks, a rushing river stream paralleling the highway, wildflowers in abundance and fruit trees in bloom are certainly a sign that it is springtime in the Rockies. The following pics show our drive through several mountain passes into Denver via the Eisenhower Tunnel and on to Longmont.

We arrived in Longmont and immediately met our Air Force friends who live in Ft. Collins. John and Ann Buckner made our days in Longmont so much fun. They entertained us at their beautiful home, their country club and gave us a very interesting tour of Ft. Collins. What a lovely town! Thank you Ann and John for such wonderful hospitality and your friendship for all of these years. You are the best!

Out to dinner with Ann and John Buckner (on the right of the picture). Next to Roger sit Jill (John and Ann's daughter) and her new husband Shawn. We first met Jill when she was four years old.

This layover in Longmont has been quite productive and exciting. While we were here, we decided to change direction. In short, we have traded our Embark for a Class A Winnebago Tour. On the next blog, you will see what it looks like. In the meantime, I hope you have enjoyed this blog and the pics of our beautiful country. Thank you for checking in with us!