Wednesday

And yet, another beautiful day in CO. We headed up Pikes Peak this morning on the Cog Railway. We started out at about 6,000 feet in elevation and go up to above 14,000 feet. It was a beautiful trip up (and down). Lots of scenery, rocks, trees and waterfalls. Even some wildflowers. Audrey had a little issue with the altitude but was ok. It was chilly when we got to the top but you could see for miles. There were 275 people on our train plus folks can drive up so there were lots of people on the top. We sat with folks from Texas who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. They had gone to the top on their honeymoon on July 5th and had gotten snowed in at the top. There's still a little snow at the top but not much.

When we got back down the mountain it was pretty warm. We headed off to the Garden of the Gods. It's a large park with some amazing rock features.

We had dinner in Manitou Springs along a main street. We sat on the porch of a Bistro and watched people then we had promised Audrey ice cream. We checked out the little shops but only purchased two Christmas ornaments.

Tomorrow is a long day of traveling ...

Tuesday

Another lovely day in Colorado. It was warm but breezy, sometimes almost windy. We drove about 90 minutes from Denver to Colorado Springs to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. It boasts that it's the only mountain zoo. It's a very nice zoo with some animals that we don't get to see in Columbus. The first animals you see as you enter are giraffes and you can buy giraffe crackers to feed them. We saw just about everything and rode the skyway and the merry-go-round. Audrey also rode her first pony. It was a really good day. I think we're all tired although Brian and Audrey are in the pool. Tomorrow we head up Pikes Peak on the Cog Railway.

Monday

Hi Friends - it's definitely warmer in Denver! I'll start out with a note about our hotel room. We're staying in a Holiday Inn Express just off the freeway. Yesterday Brian noticed that the fluorescent bulb(s) in the light above the bathroom sink was flickering. I didn't think it was a big deal. OK, I was wrong. (better make sure Brian reads this) This morning it was like taking a shower with a strobe light. Unfortunately, it's the only light in the bathroom and the only mirror in the room. Made putting in my contacts real interesting and it's a good thing we're not epileptic. We talked to them when we went down for breakfast and they've fixed it. Now about breakfast - they were out of orange juice, they didn't have any cold water and the room was really hot. So we packed up and went to McDonald's.

Our first stop was the Denver Downtown Aquarium. It was nice (Cincinnati is better and what aquarium has tigers, no not the sharks, the cats) but we had a good time. Audrey was pretty brave and touched a star fish and petted the sting rays.

Next we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. A very cool museum. We saw a movie in the planetarium about stars and Audrey even liked it. The BodyWorks exhibit is here so we saw that. This exhibit was in Columbus but we never went. It has real bodies that have been "plasticized" and posed. It also shows healthy organs and unhealthy organs. Audrey now knows what the stent looks like that Grandma has in her heart and what a cat's heart looks like. It was really very interesting. Then we visited some of the natural exhibits mostly about North American animals.

As we were leaving the museum I asked a lady at the information desk if she could recommend a restaurant. She recommended Annie's Cafe & Bar. We had a really good, relaxing meal. The decor is vintage/old movie posters and stuff from tv shows so they show whatever's playing on TCM. You'll notice in the photo of Audrey and I that we are genetically linked as we watched some movie from 1944. :)

Tomorrow is a short travel day, Denver to Colorado Springs/Manitou Springs.

Sunday, part two

Oh yes, today also included listening to more golf on the radio ... :)

Sunday

A good day for travelling. We left Hill City about 9am and had travelled about an hour when we could start to see the Rocky Mountains to the west. It's just amazing how far one can see ... and just how beautiful it is.

Stopped at a rest area just across the Wyoming state line that looked brand new. As we walked up I read the sign - it was a solar powered recycling rest area - a new fangled pit toilet. It was pretty but yes, it still smelled. And my family knows how much I "love" pit toilets.

Traffic picked up the closer we got to Denver. We're staying on the northeast side. We had dinner at a place called 3 Margaritas with a live Mariachi band. You can imagine what Audrey thought of that. :) They sounded pretty good, for all that I know about Mariachi bands but we weren't there long enough for them to make it around to our side of the restaurant. Brian and Audrey have gone off to the pool. Tomorrow our plans include the Denver Downtown Aquarium.

Saturday

Our last day in the Black Hills ... started out slow. Audrey and Brian slept until almost 9am. We had breakfast and then headed for Rapid City. Visited the Chapel in the Hills, a replica of a Norwegian chapel. Lots of carved wood outside but very plain inside. There was a nice prayer walk with statues along the walk.

Downtown Rapid City has bronze statues of 40 of our Presidents on 40 different corners. You'll see a photo of Brian and Audrey with LBJ. Then we visited a store called Prairie Edge - I could've spent lots of money in there! Our next stop was the Dahl Arts Center. A very nice art museum. We spent almost two hours there - partly because it stormed. We spent several minutes looking out a window watching the quarter sized hail bounce off the Pilot. Luckily, no damage. Audrey made a friend while we were there (a total of 8 people in the museum) and so they walked around and played in the kids room for a while.

We enjoyed a very nice dinner with Jimmy, Rachel and Cooper. Audrey chatted away as if we'd seen them yesterday and even gave Cooper a couple of her silly banz. (silly banz aren't that big in SD yet)

Tomorrow is a travel day ... we're off to Denver.

Friday

It was another lovely day in the Black Hills. We spent the morning at the Crazy Horse Memorial. The is a LARGE sculpture being carved out of the side of a mountain. Crazy Horse was an Indian involved in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. This sculpture was started in 1947 and the work continues. They've finished work on his face and it was dedicated in 1998. The next 20 years will be spent on the horse's head. You can kind of see the outline painted on the rock. They don't have an end date for this project. There's an extensive Indian artifact museum at the site. You also get to walk through the studio and part of the house where the sculptor and his family have resided. The best part for Audrey and I was the kitty sleeping on the couch in the room with the family stuff. We had walked right by her then we noticed other people looking and went back to pet her. :)

We went into Custer for lunch. Ate at a family restaurant that had the slowest service ever!! I'm pretty sure we were there an hour and a half.

Today it's cloudy and there may be rain. We're headed into Rapid City where we'll meet Jimmy, Rachel and Cooper for dinner.

Thursday

Well, I hate to say but it's been another beautiful day in SD. Temps were warmer today, low 80's but with a breeze. We spent the day in Custer State Park. Luckily, Brian has nerves of steel because it's quite a drive. Lots of signs where the arrow looks like an upside down U and has 15 mph on it. Very narrow roads and some one lane tunnels through the rock. First we went to Sylvan Lake and hiked around the lake. It's only a mile but there are some rocks to navigate. It's so pretty though. Then we drove the Wildlife Loop. We saw the burros, a few pronghorns, more deer and the buffalo. We'd been driving for a while and hadn't seen the buffalo so we stopped at a visitor's center and asked. They showed us on the map where they had been this morning. We drove a few more miles and there they were. A smaller herd right along the road in a meadow with a stream. We sat and watched for several minutes. A few miles further and there was a larger herd farther back from the road. We stopped at the State Game Lodge, a nice lodge in the park and had lunch.

We stopped in Keystone and I bought Audrey and I Black Hills gold necklaces. She was asleep in the backseat so she and Brian stayed in the car in a nice shady spot while I shopped. We also stopped at the Powderhouse Lodge where we stayed in 1974, and took some photos. I think we'll spend a quiet evening in the hotel.

Wednesday

Sorry I didn't post yesterday - we were having connectivity problems ...

It was another beautiful, almost cool day in South Dakota yesterday. We had breakfast and drove down the street a few blocks to catch the 1880's train. It's a steam engine that pulls 7 passenger cars from Hill City to Keystone and back. It's a 10 mile trip through the Black Hills. We only had a 15 minute layover in Keystone. Brian and Audrey got off the train and I saved our seats. Thanks to our vacations as kids, I've ridden several trains like this, including this one. So people always look at me with interest when I get on and flip the seat back so that we can sit facing each other. We wandered around Hill City after lunch.

We had some spare time in the afternoon so Brian and Audrey had fun in the pool.

Last night we went to the Circle B Ranch for the Cowboy Supper. All day Audrey had been trying to talk us out of going but in the end, she enjoyed it. They had goats and donkeys to pet, a playground and she tried her hand at roping. Then everyone gathers along the "Main Street" and there's shootout between the Sheriff and the Biscuit Bandit. You get your supper on a tin plate and your lemonade in a tin cup. Baked potato, beans, a peach, a biscuit and a piece of spice cake. You had your choice of meat - chicken, beef or buffalo. Brian had some buffalo and it was ok. After supper, there's a show. The owner and two of his sons, and sometimes the wife, sing cowboy songs. It was a really nice evening.

A few more photos ...

Beautiful day

Hi Everyone! First let me say, it really has been a beautiful day. Temp in the low 70's with a breeze. The kind of blue blue sky that you only see in the west and the smell of a pine forest.

Audrey was happy - we started out a Bear Country USA. It's a drive through park with elk, big horn sheep, mountain goats, buffalo and bears. Lots of bears - bears sleeping along the road, bears crossing the road, bears in water holes, bears on top of logs and bears chasing each other. Then once you've driven through, you stop at what they call Baby Land and you see baby/young animals. We saw a baby skunk, porcupines, badgers, lynx and bobcats. They're all very cute but nothing is cuter than 28 six month old bear cubs. Normally they have about 14 per year but this year they got 28. The cubs stay with their mothers there in the park until they are 3 months old. These little things had been born in late January and they were just too cute! We could have watched them for hours.

Next stop was Mt. Rushmore. Not much to say other than you really should see this at some time in your life. It's amazing and beautiful.

Audrey's done really well. We were about half way through a .6 mile walk around Mt. Rushmore when she started to get tired. We're off to get some dinner soon.

We had another storm last night. Audrey and I looked out the window and saw both a rainbow and a lightning strike. Would've made a great photo.

Tomorrow it's the 1880's train ride to Keystone and a cowboy supper.

Busy Monday

Well, the rain had slowed by the time we left the hotel. Drove about an hour to Mitchell, SD to visit the Corn Palace. They call it a piece of "folk art" as it's a building decorated with corn.

Later, we stopped somewhere along the way at a "1880's town" to use the bathroom. We were walking around and a man dressed as a wild west character called out to Audrey, "Hey girl! I haven't seen you in 10 or 15 years. Not since that time in Sante Fe!" Well, you can imagine what she thought of that. The more he talked, the more she tried to hide behind me. :)

Next we got off the freeway and followed the Badlands loop to Wall. It took us through part of Badlands National Park which is pretty amazing. We got out several times to look around and take photos. They're repaving the road so there were some delays. We pulled over once to watch the prairie dogs.

Next stop - Wall Drug. Lots of stuff and lots of people. We had some dinner and ice cream. Bought Audrey a prairie dog stuffed animal which made her very happy.

Drove about an hour and a half to Hill City which will be our home base for the next week. We're in the Black Hills now and it's beautiful. Need to check the weather forecast and decide what we'll do tomorrow. Audrey's really pushing for Bear Country ...

Rainy Monday

We had quite the storms come through over night. Not much rain but lots of thunder. It's raining pretty heavy right now but it looks like we might drive out of it. Hopefully, it will be done by the time we reach Mitchell to see the Corn Palace.
Anyway, I forgot to mention in yesterday's blog "more golf on the radio." While we were able to see the end of the US Open on TV, we did get to listen to more on the radio. But to counter it's effects, before the golf started, we listened to the 70's station. A little Meatloaf/Foreigner/the Babies and Stevie Wonder do wonders (pun intended) to help ease the discomfort of golf on the radio. And for a while, during golf on the radio, both Audrey and Brian were asleep. (I was driving so it was ok.)
Have a good day!

More traveling

Happy Father's Day to everyone! We had another good day of traveling. Drove through the Wisconsin Dells on our way across Wisconsin. Stopped in La Crosse, WI and had lunch. They have a very nice riverwalk along the Mississippi. We found a sub shop that was open, got sandwiches and sat by the river and watched the boats. I embarrassed Audrey when I waved to some folks on a boat. Must have caught them off guard too because they paused before they waved back.

On our drive across Minnesota, we saw a lot of the big wind turbine/windmills. We drove through an area near Rochester where there were probably 100 of these windmills. They were on both sides of the road for as far as we could see. We continued to see them, sometimes in groups of 6 or 8 or sometimes just 1 or 2. Yesterday we saw a semi with a special trailer that had one of the wings/arms on it. Brian discovered that they are made somewhere in Minnesota.

We arrived in Sioux Falls about 7:30pm. Brian and Audrey checked out the pool but she changed her mind and didn't want to get in.

Tomorrow we drive across South Dakota.

Good day for traveling

It was grey and cloudy when we left home but it soon became sunny with a beautiful blue sky. We made it as far as the Delaware State Park on 23 when Audrey said, for the first of many times, "When will we be there?" Other than that, she traveled really well today. We had packed our lunch but ended up eating it in a Wendy's parking lot. After passing many rest areas, there were none around when it was lunchtime. We had very little traffic until we got near Chicago. Ugh! Once we got around the city, traffic began to move again and we arrived in Waukesha, WI about 5pm local time. (really enjoyed listening to golf on the radio. ha!) We've had dinner and Audrey and Brian have gone to check out the pool.

Brian and I commented on the small amount of stuff in the back of the Pilot. About 5 years ago we went to Virginia Beach and took 2 strollers, the pack n play, a booster seat and who knows how much other "baby" stuff and the back of the Suburban was full. Things change ...

Getting ready

Hi Friends and Family,
We're off on our big adventure! We'll leave on Saturday morning, June 19th and head west. We hope you enjoy following us as we travel.