taken from the Hyde St. Pier

Looking down Geary Street from Powell St.

Grand Hyatt Hotel and downtown skyline from the outside elevator at the Westin Hotel

Coit Tower and the Bay from the outside elevator at the Westin Hotel

The old Sir Francis Drake Hotel and Harry Denton's Starlight room at the top

Going UP !!! Taken from the outside elevator at the Westin Hotel

Post Street and Powell Street at Union Square......yes, the garbage runs in SF on Sunday!

Post Street between Powell and Stockton at Union Square

Stockton Street at Union Square

Top of Statue at Union Square FROM the Cheesecake Factory Rooftop

Jonathon Livingston looking for a handout......he was actually outside the glass partition

Saks and Tiffany's from the Cheesecake Factory Rooftop

Happy Anniversary !!!

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary !!!
We had a great brunch at the Cheesecake Factory on the rooftop of Macy's. We ate outside of course so I could get these great pics! When we finished our meal, we walked over to the Westin Hotel and took a ride on the outside elevator that I enjoy so much. Of course I got some more great pics there!!
I think I have figured out a new way to get pics on this blog so I will put a bunch on that we took yesterday and today.

The Westin Hotel from the Cheesecake Factory

Beautiful Saturday Afternoon at Aquatic Park

I guess after our long road trip, we aren't through feeling like tourists yet, so this afternoon we took the 19 muni down to Aquatic Park (affectionately known as The Wall) and took a few pictures. We wandered out on the Hyde Street Pier and got free tickets to go on all the ships with our Senior Lifetime Pass that we bought when we were at Yellowstone! Sometimes it pays to be old!

WE ARE HOME !!!!

We are at last home again in our little apartment in our beautiful city of San Francisco. We arrived yesterday afternoon and just finished the unpacking this morning! It was an incredible amount of "stuff" that we had. Both of us packed about 3 or 4 times as many clothes as we actually needed.

Our sweet Penny at Avis took care of us so well and expected us in with the car today since she had been reading our blog! I guess we killed the car for Avis. We put so many miles on the car that they are not able to use it anymore for a rental. Sorry, Avis! It was a great car though and it performed perfectly for us. We changed the oil in Rochester, Minnesota and Penny made sure we got credit for it off our bill.

Since we went to bed so early last night, be both were up and wide awake at 5:00 this morning! I did a grocery order first thing so was able to get it delivered this afternoon. Now we will have some food in the house again!

I went to the post office today to pick up the mail. We have had it on hold. They had to give me one of those plastic tote bins to carry it home in. It's really odd to see one whole month's mail all at once!

Thanks to all who have sent welcome home messages, we really appreciate it very much. I may keep this blog going from time to time, so check back occasionally for updates on the Stevenson's!

On October 26th we are leaving for our next adventure. We are going to Nashville and Memphis with Kevin, Barbi and Mom. Can't wait for that, it should be a lot of fun. I can't believe I really get to see the inside of Graceland after all these years!

Our love to all
Wayne and Colleen

Homeward Bound !!!

Good morning from Provo Utah. We are in a beautiful Marriott room (I LOVE their beds) and we pampered ourselves last night and had room service. We had the greatest meal and watched the baseball playoffs.

We are planning for today to get to Winnemucca and then home tomorrow (Monday). We are both a bit tired and ready to be home. It has been an incredible journey for us. We have met lots of really wonderful people, seen some fantastic scenery, dispelled some of our own prejudices and taken some really great pictures.

The final tally of the numbers will be:
34 days on the road
Over 7000 miles driven
Visited 18 states
Entered all 4 time zones
Stayed in 24 different hotels/motels

Thanks to everyone who has been with us on this journey, it was fun knowing you were all reading and following us along. This has certainly been a dream come true. We are so happy that we made the decision to take this trip. We are also very thankful for just so many things that made this trip so enjoyable. We had absolutely no trouble of any kind, good weather 98% of the time, met lots of great people, had no problems finding rooms, restaurants, etc. The whole thing was just seamless and so very incredible.

It is amazing to us that two people can spend so much time in a car on the road and not encounter any problems or troubles. We are very thankful for that.

Really looking forward to smelling that concrete and seeing our beautiful City tomorrow. We miss our little apartment. It's going to be nice to be able to settle in for the night without having to unload 8-10 pieces of baggage onto the cart and into our room!

This blog has been so much fun doing, I think I will keep it going for a while so ......stay tuned.

Much love to all
Wayne and Colleen

Yes, It's True, We are in VAIL, COLORADO

Good morning from the beautiful Vail Colorado. Yes, they let us stay here, can you believe it?! Two old, out of shape, tired people like us and they actually let us get a room here. We even went to a great Italian restaurant last night and had a very nice meal. Of course, we ate at about 4:00 because we had not had lunch yet and were very hungry. Being that early, we were the only ones in the place, but they served us and were very nice anyway!

After leaving Wichita yesterday, we drove to Dodge City Kansas hoping to see some historical places and things. We of course looked for Matt and Miss Kitty but they were nowhere to be found. As a matter of fact, nothing was to be found, nothing historical anyway. We located a place to eat lunch called Montana Mike's which was just across the parking lot from a big sign that said "Boot Hill". I figured we were close to the history we were looking for. Wrong! After having a great lunch, we went across to the building near the Boot Hill sign and discovered only a big tourist trap kind of place. You pay an entrance fee, go into a room to see a video, then exit the back of the room to the "western street" (which we could see from the parking lot). It looked like a bunch of very small Hollywood set buildings lined up with old paint. Behind the buildings was supposed to be a "part of Boot Hill" in the corner at the top of the hill. I asked the girl at the counter in the gift shop if the grave markers were there to see and she said the original ones were gone and "we have put replicas there"........pass! We bought a t-shirt that said "Get out of Dodge" and then did just that!

Driving through western Kansas is a beefy experience to say the least! We saw one feed lot after another with the small rolling hills just covered with pens and thousands and thousands of head of cattle. More cattle than we have ever seen before! When we arrived in Garden City Kansas (which by the way has absolutely nothing to do with anything resembling a garden or anything green!) to spend the night, the lady at the hotel desk told us there are 2.1 million head of cattle in the surrounding area! I think we saw at least half of them ourselves!

We left Garden City Kansas and headed for Denver. Along the way we talked about whether or not to go back to Yellowstone as we had originally planned to do, or just head home. We decided our being homesick was growing each day so we would not return to Yellowstone this time and instead we would head home. We miss the smell of concrete in our City!

So Wayne found a different route to take which brought us here to Vail Colorado and we are very happy we took this way. The Rocky Mountains are absolutely breathtaking. We drove through Denver without stopping and was thrilled to see the beautiful mountains after so long in Western Kansas and the flat hot dry territory we had been through.

We arrived in Vail and immediately I felt the higher elevation. Just two or three steps and I am out of breath! Depending on where you are in the valley or on the slopes, you are from 8000 to 11,000 feet up. It is beautiful and I took many many pictures of course. I will put the pictures up here tomorrow since we are in a bit of a hurry to get started this morning. We just heard there was 1-3 inches of snow expected in Salt Lake City today and that is our next stop so we aren't happy about that!

We are definitely getting excited to be back home. We are getting a bit tired. We have seen 18 states, traveled over 7000 miles by the time we arrive back in San Francisco, and have had an absolutely magical and wonderful time on this road trip. But now it's time to decompress, and be back home in our little apartment in San Francisco and be ready for our next big adventure with Kevin Barbi and Mom the end of this month. We will be going to Nashville and Memphis to see Graceland. For any of you who know me well, you know how big a thrill this will be for me to see Elvis' home.

So, that's it for today as we are going to get packed up and get back on the road again and make our way back home.

By the way, our license plate game is now only missing THREE plates. We saw Delaware actually as we were in some small town in Western Kansas, I don't remember the name right now. So that only leaves Rhode Island and Connecticut and Hawaii. We have seen 47 different license plates on this trip! Fun, huh!

Love to all, time to pack up
Wayne and Colleen

Wichita Kansas via El Dorado

Good morning from Wichita Kansas. First, I need to correct a couple things from the last post. That "head cold" turned into a trip to a small community hospital in Fulton Missouri called Callaway Hospital. Everyone needs to write the name of this medication down: Azithromycin
Ask your doctor about it the next time you get a respiratory issue. They gave me a shot of the "A" drug and a packette containing 6 pills. You take two the first day and one a day for 4 days after. After only the shot and the first two pills, I felt tremendously better. This stuff is great!

Leaving Kingdom City/Fulton Missouri, we drove to Emporia Kansas. It was the first day we had any rain while driving. It rained almost all the way. We decided to stay in Emporia, which is real close to Wayne's hometown of El Dorado.

The next morning we drove into El Dorado and had a magical day for Wayne. He was telling me stories and relating memories all day. We first went to 1450 North Topeka Road where Grandad Watson the dentist lived. We got some pictures of the house, not so well kept of course as when Grandad and Grandma lived there, but still a stately looking house.

While we were driving slowly and clearly looking "touristy", a guy pulled up and stopped in the road just ahead of us. Out came Mr. Robert Wood. He said we looked like we were lost and he wanted to help. We were afraid we had looked suspicious and Mr. Wood wanted to check us out. He was the nicest man. Wayne told him the story and he shared some facts about the area as he knew it. We asked him where was a good place to have breakfast and with his toothless grin he said "True Lies"......of course Wayne asked him to repeat it a couple times before we could understand it. Seems that True Lies is a bar but according to Mr. Wood, serves great food. Ok, we're game. It's 9:00 in El Dorado Kansas and neither of us have had any alcohol for 7 years now, but we will go to a bar for breakfast!!!! Turns out it was a great decision. Our new friend Robert not only gave us directions, he said to follow him and he drove us right there. He parked, we thought he was going in for a bite to eat too, but after getting us inside and directing Wayne to the men's room (urinals on the left, stalls on the right side of the room), he said his goodbyes and left! He only went inside to help us get started with our breakfast experience! Coming back from the "left bathroom", Wayne tells me about a sign hanging on the wall...."if you need to take a crap, use the North bathroom"...........those were the words, with apologies for the graphics here.
Our friend Robert was right, the best biscuits and gravy you could ever ask for and the price was certainly right. I noticed the ladies were wearing t-shirts from the business, so I asked what I had to do to get one of the t shirts and she said $10 will do! So we walked out of "True Lies" with a great breakfast, 2 t-shirts, a $10 tip for the lady who went through the closet looking for our shirts and the whole charge was $40.27!!! How cool is that?! The breakfast alone at home would have been that much.
Off we go to other landmarks for Wayne such as the two houses on First street where Wayne's grandparents and his mom lived before moving to the big house on Topeka St. and his Aunt Edith and Uncle Edgar lived after moving from the Templeton farm outside of town. We located the hospital where Wayne was born, the church where his parent's were married and got pictures of both. We gave our GPS lady the address of Aunt Bess. She got us there perfectly and we rang the bell. Wayne was delighted to see Aunt Bess answer the door, he recognized her immediately. She wasn't sure who he was of course but when he told her a smile came instantly. She invited us in to her beautiful home where she lives with her sister Dot. A home care nurse was just completing her daily check of the sisters and made her exit. Not long after that the guy from meals on wheels brought their noon meal which both ladies informed us was "probably not very good anyway"......we were concerned that they wanted to talk and not eat. We didn't want their meal to get cold, but that didn't seem to bother them. Aunt Bess took us on a tour through the house and showed us the bedroom that Wayne and Jim stayed in when they visited long ago. She and Wayne reminisced about lots of past history, including the time Wayne tromped around in the tall grass at the farm and got a bad infestation of chiggers! She said that was quite the talk of the family for a long time. She remembered how Wayne would come up to the big house at the farm and play Monopoly with her girls when they were all children. She explained that the farm is now owned by the Taylors and we should go out there and they would be happy to show us around.

Aunt Bess is quite an accomplished artist and has lots of her paintings hanging in her home. She asked Wayne to select one that he would like to have. She took it right down off the wall and gave it to him! I told her it would have a place of honor in our home.

After saying our goodbyes to Bess and Dot, we drove out to the old Templeton farm. Wayne remembered the old days as we drove down the long gravel driveway to the main house. He pointed out where Edit and Edgar's house was before it burned down. The main house, John and Bess' house sat stately and beautiful after all these years. Wayne rang the doorbell but got no answer. We pulled down away from the house a bit and Wayne got out and walked down to the site where the other house used to be. I stayed behind and noticed a gentleman coming from the house. Mr. Taylor apologized and said he was upstairs in the bathroom and couldn't get down to the door before we walked away! He was delighted to see us and began to tell Wayne all about the farm today. Mr. Taylor is 87 years old and he and his wife still live there on the farm. Two of their 6 sons work with them on the farm. Mrs. Taylor came back home after a few minutes and we all had a very nice chat. They invited us inside and Wayne was just amazed, it was so much fun for me to see all the excitement in his eyes and see him reminisce with everyone about his childhood.
We got lots of pictures of course and then left the farm to continue our day and went to a small town called Burns just up the road a ways. Grandad and Grandma are buried in Burns. We located the cemetary and walked through, looking for the Watson markers. We did find them and Wayne was able to say hello once again to his grandparents.
All in all, it was a very wonderful day for Wayne and brought back so many warm and wonderful memories of his family and his early years of coming to Kansas during the summers.
We also located the Freeland farm, some family friends. Wayne remembered many visits to that farm as well.
After leaving the area, we drove to Wichita and found a nice Clarion to stay. We asked about the laundry facilities since we were to the point where we HAD to wash some clothes. We had been putting it off for days and now had to do it. The girl at the desk said there was no detergent and they were out. The only place closeby was a WalMart, we really didn't want to do that. A nice young man came by and said he had some in his car! When he went to get it, I asked who he was. The girls said "our general manager"......wow, the boss came walking back in with liquid Tide and said to use what we needed and leave it at the desk! How sweet are these people in the midwest. I'm telling you, things have just been falling into place for us like that.

Anyway, we are off today with clean clothes and fond memories remembered in El Dorado. We are headed for Dodge City and then up to Denver. We will make final decisions then on the final leg of our trip and our return home. We are both getting homesick and ready to get back.

When I started this today, I said I had a couple things to correct. Well, the second one is that we have now been in 17 states in total, not 15 as I said yesterday.

Love to all
Wayne and Colleen

4 States in ONE day.........Whew!

Hello again bloggers......yes, yes, I know, I have been a bit lax of late. The truth is we pulled into Frankfort Kentucky and I proceeded to get a bit of a head cold. We needed a "down day" anyway, so we just stayed an extra day and did lots of sleeping. I sneezed and coughed and sneezed and took pills and slept and slept some more. I guess it worked, because today I feel much better.

So, here we are in (of all places) Kingdom City Missouri. No, I haven't seen anyone in long white robes yet, but I will let you know if I do. How did we get here, you ask? Well, we went West on I-64 as suggested to us by someone we met on the train in Cass. We stopped off in Louisville, KY to see Churchill Downs where they run the Kentucky Derby. Boy what a place that was! Neither of us knew it was sooooo big. Then we continued westbound and went through Indiana and Illinois again. Crossing the Mississippi into St. Louis, we saw the gorgeous big Archway. What a sight that is. We also found Busch Stadium where the Cardinals play baseball. We saw the football stadium, but I forgot the name already. What a big place St. Louis is. Wow, it is huge. Some road construction didn't help the already confusing way of getting around. Once again our little lady inside the GPS to the rescue!! She has saved our bacon almost everyday during this road trip.

Wayne really outdid himself today. Since I wasn't feeling my best, he drove all the way today, 420 miles! He's pooped tonight but understandably so.

We also crossed back into the Central time zone from the Eastern time zone. It gets a bit confusing sometimes to keep track of the time, but it really isn't an issue. We stop driving when we get tired, we eat when we get hungry and we sleep until we feel like getting up. So, time really isn't an issue, but I still like to know what time it is! Does all that make any sense?

We will see Kansas City tomorrow. I'm goin' to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come...........well, I digress.

We are heading for El Dorado where Wayne's family is from and where he spent lots of summers as a young whipersnapper. I guess there is still an aunt Bess there who we will stop and see. She is 96, how cool is that?! We are also going to go to the farm where the young Stevenson boys toiled their teenage summers.

I guess this darn head cold is what you would call our first glitch. It's not going to amount to anything, I already feel much better than yesterday.

Note to MOM: Don't worry about me, I'M FINE, I promise! Wayne got me all the meds I need for cough, etc and I'm doing fine.

As of now, we have been in 15 different states and driven over 5100 miles. We are only missing 4 license plates now. We still need Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii and Rhode Island. We have seen all 46 others! Isn't that incredible?!!

Note to Richard: Happy Birthday! Hope you enjoyed your long birthday celebration.

That's it for now lovely people. I will get some pictures for you now and then get some rest for tomorrow. This road trip has been phenominal.

We got up in Kentucky this morning, drove through Illinois and Indiana and tonight we are going to bed in Missouri..........I love our road trip!!!

Love to all
Wayne and Colleen

Cass West Virginia Scenic Railroad.........ALL ABOARD !!!

Hey Y'All.......(getting into the West Virginia vernacular here)
We have had another experience not to be believed. Although we have been without a cell phone signal and a very weak and sometimes nonexistent internet signal, we didn't miss either one while in this part of West Virginia. First let me say, the state of West Virginia is BEAUTIFUL ! There are such quaint things here. The hills are carpeted with beautiful trees which are now changing into the fall colors. Of course the best part of West Virginia, if you ask Wayne, is the little town of Cass. In Cass is the scenic railroad that takes you on a 4 1/2 hour trip up to the top of the hill to a place called (are you ready for this?) Bald Knob. I'm not lying!
On the way up and back, there is a nice gentleman that almost constantly speaks about all the history and scenic points of interest along the way. Of course the best part of the whole experience is old number 11, which is a Shay Locomotive that powers the 4 car train up and back. The Shay belches such smoke and steam that it's not to be believed. (and probably would be banned in California because of the whole polution thing) The whistle blows and even the hearts of non railroad types such as myself begin to flutter and miss a beat here and there. It harkens of earlier times when the lumber workers slaved long day in and long day out for $1.75 per day and 4 hearty meals. The work was incredible. The Shay was incredible. It was an incredible time.
We went back this morning and almost emptied out the gift shop, being sure to have one of everything that said "Cass" or "Shay" on it! We took some more pictures and then it happened. I was in the giftshop and the door blew open and Wayne rushed in and asked with such a gleam in his eye as I have not often seen, "Guess where I have just been?"....at the same time, showing me his hands which are now black. "I actually was up in the cab of the Shay"...........OMG and I didn't get a picture!!!
So, off we went back out to the Shay which was about to depart for the days ride up the hill once more. Wayne called up to the engineer, asking if he could once again climb up into the cab so I could get some pics. "Sure, come on up" the engineer said. "In fact, get over here into the seat"........so I ran around to the other side of the locomotive and there he sat, my husband with the biggest grin I have ever seen on his face! Remember your first trip to Disneyland? Multiply that excitement a few hundred times and that is what was pulsing through his heart at that moment. I snapped a few pictures, not wanting that moment to pass. He was so excited.
After getting a few more pictures of the town that we didn't get yesterday, we left Cass for the last time and headed out on the road again.
We actually stopped somewhere a few minutes down the road at a Yard Sale one old guy was having. It looked interesting, so we just stopped. We bought some old medicine bottles from him. It was really fun!
We didn't get too much farther down the road before we were both just pooped. We had intended to make it to Charleston West Virginia tonight, but made it only as far as Beckley West Virginia. I think it's about another hour to Charleston, the capital city of WV.
Not sure where we will go tomorrow, but I know it will be exciting.
So many things have been so wonderful on this trip, we are so very grateful and thankful that our trip has been so wonderful.
We are heading west now with only one thought in mind. We want to see Yellowstone again and hope to be home in another 10-12 days. Other than that, we will go, as we have done since the beginning, where the wind blows us.

Note to Jane and Gary: Thanks for the note, glad you are with us too!

Note to Mom: Sorry, it took me a bit longer to get this posted tonight. I started looking at all our pictures. We have taken over 1000 pictures now! Thank God for digital cameras!!! It was good talking to you this afternoon. Please don't worry about us, we are having the time
of our lives and are doing just great.

Note to Kevin: Don't lose those tickets, we are really looking forward to our trip with you guys later in October.

Note to Cameron: Did you make it to SF last week?

Thanks to all and we really enjoy hearing from you, it makes us feel like we are sharing our great good fortune with everyone. Thanks to everyone for wishing us the best.

Oh, forgot to tell you about my new friend Tom Yeager. We met Tom on the Cass ride. He had a huge backpack and when we got to the top of the mountain, he struck out walking and planned to backpack/hike for a week in the forest, all by himself!!! He was from Florida and has been coming to West Virginia for 10 years, doing this hike. He hikes back down to the bottom of the hill and takes a week to do it. He loves the solitude. I told him I would stay awake for nights worrying about him on the mountain all alone, so he promised to send me an email when he got out of the mountains!!! Nice, huh? The funny thing is, I think he really will.

Ok, must close this for now and get the pictures posted. That always takes a lot of time.
Much love to everyone......
Wayne and Colleen

Slatyfork West Virginia...........no lie

You know sometimes when things just seem to go your way, thing just seem to fall into place with little or no effort? Well that's what happened to us when we found the Morning Glory Inn in Slatyfork West Virginia. We left Columbus Ohio and zig zagged through West Virginia to arrive at Slatyfork yesterday afternoon. This is a little ski resort area near Wayne's railroad in Cass West Virginia. This Morning Glory Inn is a Bed and Breakfast. Neither of us has ever stayed at a B&B before. What a treat! This place is really great. We are the only ones here right now.
We understand someone else is coming today, but right now we have the run of the place to ourselves.
First on arriving, we were met by a beautiful white cat named Tessa. Rod says Tessa owns the place and we are sure he's right. We were directed upstairs to our room and what a room it is. It is HUUUGE ! There is a full King Sized Sleigh bed plus a Queen Size bed on the opposite end of the room. Two large overstuffed chairs accent the room. It is decorated very beautifully and has a private bath as well.

Slatyfork is south of Elkins West Virginia and is just a small ski resort area. It is only about 30 minutes from Cass, where the scenic Railroad is. We are so excited to get here. I didn't post this last night because we had no signal in our room. Right now I am in the dining room, having just been served the best homemade breakfast imaginable by the owners! I didn't get the thingy to download the pictures we took yesterday, so alas, no pictures today but I promise I will get them tomorrow.

Note to Jim: Thanks for sending the addresses in El Dorado, Wayne is delighted and has been telling me all about the people who lived there. I guess we will see Aunt Bess and maybe take her to the farm with us. thanks for the info!

Note to Lisa: I will send you the ND pics as soon as you send me your email address. I knew I should have brought everything with me but I didn't.

It is 8:30 in the morning and a bit foggy here right now. You can smell the wood burning fireplaces in the air, it's so cool! I think I am going to have to go upstairs and get ready, Wayne is chomping at the bit to get to Cass.

I will take tons of pictures today and get them all downloaded so that I can put them in the blog entry tonight.

All Aboard !!!
Love
Wayne and Colleen

Amish Education

As I may have mentioned before, we had intended to go into Pennsylvania and find an Amish settlement as I have been fascinated by the culture. Quite by accident this morning, we discovered we were actually very near to an Amish settlement right there in Indiana where we were. So we went down a couple county roads and off the main interstate to a little town called Shipshawanee Indiana. Later we went on down the road to Topeka, Indiana to another settlement.
Let me tell you, this was such an experience. It was incredible. The weather was miserable.......mis....er......able ! It was so hot and muggy that it almost hurt to breathe. But we stopped off at the first trading post we found. After getting inside, we found out it had nothing to do with the Amish people, but the lady told us about the flea market just about a mile down the road. So off we went. It was a huge thing with dozens and dozens of vendors. Some were Amish, some were not. We walked around for a while and went in and out of the vendor booths. Having heard before we got there that the Amish people do not like to have their picture taken, we were very discreet with our cameras. I had so many questions I wanted to ask some of the ones I spoke with but didn't get too inquisitive so as not to offend them. I did speak with one lady (not Amish) who seemed to know a lot about them. She said that the ladies do not have any buttons on their clothes. The men do have buttons on their shirts though. Not sure the reason why. The ladies keep their dresses together with straight pins down the front and a sash around the waist. They all wear the small white caps and the mean wear the round type straw hats. They travel exclusively either by bicycle or by horse and buggy. We saw sooooo many of the horse and buggies it was so much fun! They travel down the road just at a quick trot and have the same right of way as an automobile. They are licensed and have rear view mirrors and reflectors on the back in 4 places. The front of the buggy is completely enclosed with windows that can be opened or closed in case of bad weather.
It is a really crazy site to see so many of them just traveling down the road.
We had lunch at an Amish restaurant. The young girls waiting tables would come to wait on you, then return to their table in the corner of the room. There they would sit until something they needed to do. There were about 6-8 of them and they would all sit together until they had to get up and do something. Their steps were very measured.
Amish tradition calls for the young men to be clean shaven until they are married. At that point, they begin to grow what will become the long beard of the elders. They all dress alike and the ones we had interaction with were very friendly and very warm.
The pictures we have are not the best, but as I said, they do not like cameras so we had to be as discreet as possible, thus not always getting good pictures.
We thoroughly enjoyed our day among the Amish. In the town of Topeka Indiana they were having a livestock auction and there were 30-40 buggies parked across from the auction barn. The horses were tied up at a hitching post just like in the old west.
After leaving the Amish settlements, we drove a circuitous route to get to our destination for the night, Columbus Ohio. Thank God for our GPS lady or we would never have made it through that country!

Note to Jim and Gail: Thanks again for our lady, she's been a Godsend!

Note to Todd: Thanks for all the comments, we really appreciate it very much. You are right, Wayne and I do not fit the profile of terrorists!

Note to Todd and Lisa: Alright you two !!!! ;)

Note to Lisa: Send me your email address, I didn't bring it with me and you know how my memory is.... ;)

Note to Allan and Jane: Welcome aboard our blog, thanks for reading!!!

We were very impressed with Indiana. The land was scenic and the farms and farmhouses were neat and well maintained. The entire experience in Indiana was a positive one. We crossed over into Ohio midday today and..........hmmmm not so much! With all due respect to anyone from Ohio, we are just not impressed with what we've seen yet. It's a bit trashy and not so clean. Lima Ohio was actually really bad. We just went right on through!

Tomorrow we plan to have about a 4-5 hour drive to Cass West Virginia, home of the railroad that Wayne is modeling right now. We are real excited to finally get to see it. Not sure if we will be able to stay right in Cass, I guess it's a really small place and not a lot of lodgings to choose from. We will find something though.

After Cass, we plan to turn West and head back in the homeward direction. We plan to go back via Kansas this time so I can see where Wayne's family is from. Then we are going back through Yellowstone again. It was just that kind of experience, we want to see it again. I think we may go across to Oregon and come home via the coastal route to our beautiful San Francisco, hopefully sometime around the 11-12 of October.

Love to All
Wayne and Colleen


p.s. while typing this, a HUGE thunder storm has started. Wow, I haven't heard thunder like this for a long time. The rain is pounding our window. There is a heavy wind blowing too. We just got back from having dinner about 45 minutes ago, guess we got back under cover just in time. Not to worry, we are in a very solid large hotel and just fine.

Statistical Update from Elkhart Indiana

Thought it might be time to update the statistics of our trip so far:
Days on the Road = 18
Mileage = almost 4000
No.of States Visited = 13
No. of motels/hotels = 10
No. of License plates = 41 states

No wonder we are getting tired earlier these days!

On the highway first thing this morning, leaving Madison Wisconsin we saw a small fishing boat with an outboard motor. What is unusual about that you say? Well, this one was painted with camouflage. Now I ask you, when you are on the lake or river fishing, why on earth do you need camo paint on your boat?

We stopped off in Beloit Wisconsin this morning. It is a little town with a great college campus. Wayne thinks his grandfather may have attended that college. The town was very cute and the campus was beautiful. Beloit is right on the border with Illinois. Just a few feet outside of Beloit was the "Welcome to Illinois" sign.

We had lunch at a very unique place called an "oasis". It was built over the freeway. You pull off the freeway and park then walk into the building which goes all the way across the freeway. It has a variety of fast food sort of things to eat and some small gift shop places. It was really neat. I had a Gyros sandwich. I love that stuff!

We are still surrounded with CORN fields everywhere. All the way through Illinois and now in Indiana too. I think we are all going to be using Ethanol soon and seeing all this corn shows me how easy that would be to produce. We've seen it for miles and miles through at least 3 states now.

We are learning about toll booths today. From about an hour before we got to Chicago until we stopped tonight in Elkhart Indiana, we went through a total of 13 toll booths! That is not a misprint, it was 13! It cost us anywhere from $0.40 to $2.50. It is incredible. They will be very close too, only minutes from each other. Sometimes you go through one and they give you a card with the date and time on it along with the type of vehicle you are driving and the location that you are passing through. Then, when you get OFF the freeway, you pay according to how long you traveled on that part of the road. In all, the 13 toll booths cost us $10.55 !!!

Note to Pat: Thanks so much for all your emails. We love reading them. You asked me about how I got the job in Wall South Dakota. In another lifetime (early/mid 60's) I was married to a guy in the Air Force. He was stationed at one of the radar sites out in the Badlands. My oldest son Todd was born while I lived there. The nearest Air Force Base was 50 miles away. He was born there. A few days after we brought the baby home from the hospital, there was a horrible blizzard (you can google the blizzard of Feb 1966). It was a traumatic experience I'll tell you all about it another time.

Note to Todd: Thanks for the comments on the blog. Tonight I am including a picture of your mother in the back of a cruiser in Chicago. Not to worry, it was a great cop we ran into at Wrigley Field today and he invited me to get in the back of his car. Wayne told him we have a son on the job and he asked about where, etc. Wayne showed him your card. He also volunteered to put me in cuffs, but I declined that pleasure! When Wayne finished taking the picture of me in the car, the cop said to Wayne "Ok, I have one question for you, how much do you want her back?" Wayne had his chance for sure, but he quickly said yes, he wanted me back so the cop told him to open the door and let me out! What an experience that was. I have never been in the back of a cruiser before. This cop was a lot of fun.

After lunch, we went through Chicago and saw Wrigley Field. It was a lot different than when I was there with Todd a long time ago. Lots of security now, all gates closed tightly, lots of people standing around to be sure you don't get in. We walked all around the stadium and found one gate open with a very nice guy guarding the gate. I asked him if I could just step in and take some pictures. He said "right from there, yes", indicating that I couldn't step in through the little breezeway a few feet from the entrance to the field. I just stepped in a little at a time, started snapping pictures and the guy was following me every step. Wayne kept saying Colleen, Colleen and I just kept on stepping a bit closer. As we left, we both thanked the guy for his patience, Wayne apologized for me and I told the guy "you know, he always has to apologize for me" and he really laughed out loud so I guess he wasn't too upset with us.
Didn't get really good pictures, but got some anyway.

We decided to stop around 4:00 this afternoon and got a room at the Quality Suites in Elkhart Indiana. We went a little ways down the road to a restaurant and got a bite to eat. We hadn't unpacked or sat down to rest because we knew if we did, we wouldn't want to get up and go eat so we left right away. After having a nice meal, we came back to the room and I noticed the clocks were blinking. I turned on the TV and got nothing but snow. Then the air conditioning turned off, the lights went out and guess what, NO POWER. Wayne went down to the office and found out no one knew what happened and so he told the girl we were going to leave. We didn't have a good feeling about it anyway. Two soft drink machines were broken, one of the side doors didn't work, one snack vending machine was completely empty and Wayne just had a bad feeling about it from the beginning. When the power went off, that was it, we loaded all our stuff back on the luggage cart and off we went. She couldn't check us out of course because no computer.

We drove 15-20 miles down the road and found a Holiday Inn Express which is where we are now. Not sure what town we are in but we were in Elkhart when the power went off.

It is stiffling hot and very humid here. We didn't want to take the chance that it would be a long time before the power came back on, no air conditioning is NOT the way we wanted to sleep tonight. So, we are fine now and cool as cucumbers!

Forgot to tell you, after Chicago, we drove to South Bend Indiana which, as my daughter Lisa can tell you is home to a certain university named Notre Dame. We drove all through the campus. What a great place that is. Very nice campus. We took lots of pictures which I will email to Lisa and put a couple here for all of you to see.

We are near some Amish communities here and plan to find them and check that out tomorrow. Not sure where the road will take us other than that. We have to talk about it tonight and decide.

I sure don't want to sound like a broken record here, but this trip has been and is so very special to Wayne and I that it is just beyond words. We are both like a couple kids and having so much fun. We have had incredible good luck and absolutely no problems. The only things you could even consider small glitches would be not being able to find a room in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and having to drive on to Alpine, not a big thing. The only other one would be tonight's power failure and quick re-location of hotels. Both of those things are minor, I know, but that is the closest thing to glitches that we have experienced. We are almost embarrassed that things are going so well for us.

We are both so very grateful and thankful that we are having this great trip. It is providing us with such great memories as to last the rest of our lives.

Love to All
Wayne and Colleen

Goodbye Minnesota, Hello Wisconsin

Before we left Rochester, Minnesota this morning, we drove into town and saw the famous Mayo Clinic. Wow, what an impressive place that is. It was almost reverant being in the shadow of such an important and powerful place. There is lots of life saving and valuable research work that goes on there. It was a compound of sorts actually. There is not just one building, it consists of several buildings around the main skyscraper clinic. It sits in a very pretty part of Rochester. There are hotels and motels all over the place. Just about everything you have ever heard of is there. I would suppose they stay busy all the time too, with people coming from all over the world to get help there.

After getting a few pictures, which I will pick out a couple for here, we left town on I-90 again and headed for Wisconsin.

Minnesota and Wisconsin are separated by the Mississippi River. How great is that? We saw the Mississippi River and boy is it beautiful. We got a few pictures there too (surprise!) We stopped at a rest stop that was also an information place and it was a beautiful little park. We walked down by the river's edge and got some pictures. We were completely alone on the pathway and it was so peaceful and beautiful. There we were, just the two of us on the banks of the mighty Mississip'.

We noticed a few things immediately upon crossing into Wisconsin. The drivers are insane!! They tailgate like you wouldn't believe. They pay NO attention to the speed limit, it's incredible! Wayne was driving and had the cruise control set right on the speed limit and we actually were plugging up the highway. People were rushing past us like we were doing 40!

The next thing we noticed was that a lot of the farm buildings and barns had a lot of metal, while all we saw in other states were wood. The farms here as well as in Minnesota and most other states we've been are all so neat and almost manicured.
There is no rusting old farm machinery or debris or other garbage laying around. Not only the areas around the houses, but also the areas around all the out buildings is well maintained and green and pretty.

There is an absolute minimum of trash and litter on the highways. I really notice the difference here from California. It almost makes me ashamed to think of how our highways and freeways in California are so littered compared to these.

And, finally, more corn!!!!!! Corn is truly king here. Miles and miles of corn. The miles of corn fields we saw in Minnesota didn't quit when we crossed over into Wisconsin~

We think it's alfalfa, but there is a green crop that almost hurts your eyes to look at, it's such a bright green. I got a picture of it but not sure it really does it justice. It's the greenest green you've ever seen.

The leaves are beginning to turn and we are getting some really precious scenery of fall colors.

Note to Dennis and Lori: Thanks for the suggestion to go this way instead of through Iowa. It was a great idea. You are right, it's very pretty here.

We are in Madison Wisconsin tonight and plan to go through Chicago tomorrow to see Wrigley Field. There was a game today but they were selling BLEACHER tickets for $129 each. We decided to go see the stadium tomorrow when there is no game for free! Do not have any idea where we will stop for the night tomorrow. I think Chicago is only about an hour or so from here but don't know how much time we will spend there.

Note to Todd: I have been thinking about the week your Dad and I spent here with you when you got out of boot camp at Great Lakes. That was a fun week, wasn't it?

We are continuing on I-90 through Chicago tomorrow and I will post details of our day tomorrow night.

Thanks for reading......love to all
Wayne and Colleen

Goodbye Sioux Falls, Hello Rochester Minnesota!

Hello from Rochester, Minnesota, the home of the Mayo Clinic and the Econo Lodge on S. Broadway St.! We left Sioux Falls this morning after having a great breakfast with our friends Dennis and Lori Bell. Dennis and Lori live in Tea, South Dakota which is just outside Sioux Falls. I met Lori through Craigslist when I posted an ad asking someone to take some photographs of some property in South Dakota when we were looking for Nicole. Lori answered the ad and when we came to South Dakota the first time we met she and Dennis and we have been good friends ever since. They took us to a place called Marlins for breakfast, great place!
We left Sioux Falls on I-90 east and drove just a bit north of the Minnesota/Iowa border. Tonight we are in Rochester and we plan to go to Chicago tomorrow. We want to see Wrigley Field.
Our drive across Minnesota was beautiful. There were some fall colors already and the scenery was very nice. I must say though the roads were not as well maintained as we have seen in other states. The shoulders were weedy and the medians were a bit overgrown. Listen to me being so snobbish!
Another site on our drive today was miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and MILES of corn fields. You think we have a lot of grapevines in California? Well, you've never seen anything until you see these corn fields. Everywhere you look both sides of the road, just corn all around. I thought the corn was in Iowa. Well, I can tell you they have corn in Minnesota too!
Not too many pictures tonight, but we do have one of our friends Dennis and Lori that I will include.
Plan to see Chicago tomorrow but don't know where we will stay yet.
Felt good today to be on the road again.
Love to all
Wayne and Colleen

Hearing Is Over - Goodbye Sioux Falls

hello again........well the hearing was this afternoon in Canton, South Dakota. It is a lovely little town (and I mean little) about 20 minutes from Sioux Falls. The reason the hearing was held there is that the southern end of Sioux Falls is in Lincoln county and the county seat of Lincoln county is in.........you guessed it, Canton. Today was a big day in Canton, it was homecoming and they had a big(?) parade right down main street in front of the courthouse while we were in our hearing. We could hear the high school band playing and some sirens, etc.

Anyway, the hearing was not a win and not a lose. The judge ruled that nothing will be done today and that there will be a state appointed attorney advocate for Nicole. This attorney will investigate the situation in full and report back to the court his findings. Then, hopefully the judge will be able to find a way to insure that we can see Nicole in the future.

Soooo in the morning we are meeting our friends Lori and Dennis for breakfast and then it's on the road again. We don't know just yet where we will be going but we will figure it out before we leave! I would like to go into Pennsylvania and see the Amish country. I would love to see the culture and lifestyle of the Amish people. Then, the other destination is Cass West Virginia and then I guess we will head back west and back to our beautiful city. We are beginning to miss the smell of concrete! These wide open spaces are not our piece of cake. We have started eating a lot of steak though. It comes with the territory.

More later.......keep on keepin' on
Love
Wayne and Colleen

Friday Sept 21st in Sioux Falls South Dakota

Well bloggers, here we are still in Sioux Falls South Dakota. We do have good news though. The hearing is scheduled for 1:30 today central time. That would be 11:30 California time. We have waited all week for this and it's been rather tense and stressful but hopefully it will be all over today and things will go our way. We are hoping to be able to see Nicole tomorrow just for the day as we feel forcing the issue today could be too stressful for her.
So, hold a good thought, say a prayer and wish us good luck at the hearing today. There is a lot at stake today that will affect our ability to ever see Nicole again. I am the type of person who normally thinks that things that SHOULD happen WILL happen. But we all know that that is not always the case.
Will post another entry tonight to let you know how it turned out.
We will have to move from this hotel tomorrow anyway, they are full for tomorrow night.

More later.......

Hangin' Out in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Well, bloggers, I have been a bit lax in posting lately. We are just hanging out here in Sioux Falls at the Town Place Suites waiting for word on a hearing at which we are hoping to have Wayne named as Nicole's co-guardian. This means that we will no longer have to consult her mother and await her mother's permission or agreement to see Nicole.
We were scheduled to pick up Nicole on Monday at 9:00 at the Family Visitation Center. We were there at 8:45 and waited about 45 minutes and she never showed up with Nicole. We have had several conversations with our attorney and he is talking to the other attorney AND the judge, blah blah blah........you know how that goes.
We did have a very positive meeting with Tom Keller, our attorney this afternoon. He has a good grasp of the situation and we feel confident he will represent us very adequately during the trial. We are on "standby", whenever there is an opening in the court's schedule. According to Tom, we are behind a criminal trial and he seems to think there is a possibility that we will get on the docket late tomorrow (Wed) or Thursday. He also said we should be able to salvage at least part of our visitation with Nicole immediately after the hearing.
So, here we sit in our handicapped accessible suite, waiting to get the call that we have 30 minutes to get to the courthouse!
Of course we are very apprehensive about the possible things that could happen, but at the same time very confident that things will work out for the best.
We were scheduled to leave here on Friday, but this afternoon we extended it to Saturday just in case.
Then, after that, we are on the road again and will keep the postings and pictures coming! We are so pleased to hear from everyone who is reading our blog!
Thanks to all.....
Love
Wayne and Colleen

The 1880's

Well folks, today we had a trip back to the 1880's. After leaving Wall, SD we headed East on I-90 toward Sioux Falls. About an hour down the road we saw a sign for "1880 Town." So, we had to see what this is all about and we pulled off the freeway and followed the signs for 1880 Town.
This is about a 5 acre site that is loaded with original buildings and artifacts from 1880-1920 era that were all found in South Dakota. Some of the buildings were transported to the site for a Hollywood movie several years ago and others were trucked in later. It was very fascinating to see how people lived in "The good ol days." In addition to the buildings there were also old railroad cars and locomotives on display. A few pictures are posted that hopefully will give a flavor of the old town.
We spent about an hour there and then got back on the road toward Sioux Falls. I-90 is long, straight, and full of a whole lot of nothing. Miles and miles roll by without seeing any evidence of even a small town. But all in all, the scenery has its own beauty.
We've now covered about 3000 miles and have seen cars from 36 States. Wow, just think only 14 more to go.
This blog will be on the short side tonight as we are both really tired and will be going to bed early tonight for hopefully a fun and busy day tomorrow with Wayne's daughter, Nicole.

Wall Drug Store in Wall South Dakota

Howdy Bloggers! Here we are in Wall South Dakota. It's just after 7:00 and we just got back from having dinner in the Cactus Cafe. We both had steak. We have eaten more red meat in the last three days than we usually eat in three months! When you are in this part of the country, it just seems right to eat steak!
Update on Cowboy Wayne: Today at Wall Drug, he purchased a great leather vest and a new leather belt that matches the whole cowboy thing real well. I didn't get a picture, but I'm sure he will wear the outfit tomorrow and I will be sure to get a picture.
Today was a short drive day. We started in Valentine Nebraska and drove only about 160 miles to Wall South Dakota. We will have about 6 hours tomorrow to make it to Sioux Falls, then we pick up Nicole on Monday.
At Wall Drug today, I was introduced to Rick Husted who is the grandson of Ted and Dorothy Husted for whom I worked when I was here. Ted and Dorothy's son Bill also worked in the store and later became a state senator. The man I met today, Rick, is Bill's oldest son. Bill died in 1990 of Lou Gehrig's disease. I told Rick my story, how I worked in the store and what I did, etc. Wayne asked if it were ok to get a picture of Rick and I and I will post the picture tonight. He told me his grandfather, Ted, lived to be 96. He was such a nice man, I'm happy he was blessed to live so long.

It was fun meeting Rick and talking about the 60's at Wall Drug. He showed me where the original coffee shop was, which is the first part of the store I worked in.
He also told me about having to take the tree out that was in the middle of the room. I guess it died and they had to take it out with a crane.

While we were having our steak at the Cactus Cafe tonight, a wedding party came right down the main street in a covered wagon and several decorated buckboards along with some single mounted cowboys. Sorry, no pictures, as I said we were eating and of course I have my priorities!!! But it was a real site to see. You don't see a lot of covered wagons in San Francisco!

We are looking forward to getting to Sioux Falls tomorrow and most importantly to getting Nicole on Monday. We are hoping to encounter no trouble there.

Hope all is well with all of you, I will close now and get to posting the pictures. We have a rather week and unstable connection tonight so not sure how many pictures I will get up but here goes!

Wayne just reminded me to tell you about something really weird we saw on the highway yesterday. We came up on a camoflagued humvee with a machine gun mounted AND loaded on top. You know those strings of bullets, I don't know what they call them, that hang out of the machine gun? Then there was a couple more camoflaged vehicles then there was a very large white square truck looking thing with all kinds of markings on it. In front and back of this vehicle were vehicles with "security" on the sides and 2 very mean looking men in each one. In front of that was another camo humvee, this one didn't have a machine gun, but had instead some kind of rocket thing mounted on the top. Instead of the belt of bullets thing, it had a box like thing mounted near the rocket thing. It was really scary. Two of the highway on ramps were blocked by official vehicles to prevent anyone from coming onto the highway as the "thing" passed. There was also a military helicopter flying right over the top of the main truck carrying whatever it was. We don't know what was in the white box like truck, but whatever it was it must have been REALLY important. Maybe nukes???? Needless to say, we just sailed right on by and didn't even slow down. We didn't want that machine gun or anything else trained on us!!!
Sorry about the lame descriptions, but I'm not a military type and don't know the proper description of everything we saw.
Ok, going to get the pictures up now.
Please be good to each other and love everyone.
Our best to all,
Wayne and Colleen

Saturday Morning in Valentine Nebraska

Well bloggers, we really slept in this morning. It was almost 8:00 before we woke up. We were in bed just after 10:00 last night so we really must have needed the sleep. It is a bit more tiring than we thought, doing all this driving. We are over 2400 miles now.

Today we plan to go to Wall, South Dakota. It is the little town I lived in during another lifetime! I was there when Todd was born. When we went back to Sioux Falls to see Nicole in April, we went to Wall. Wayne enjoyed it so much that we are going back today!

We get to see Nicole on Monday morning if all goes well. We are anxious to see her again. Wayne has been leaving messages frequently telling her where we are and how long before we get there.

Note to Pat: We are so happy that you are enjoying our blog. I sure hope we don't encounter the kind of trouble that you and Gail had in your story about your Wyoming experience! I can't imagine being up for 36 hours straight! I would be shaking in my boots long before that !!! Keep reading, we enjoy writing!!

Ok bloggers, no more pictures for today since we haven't left the room yet. I will make another entry tonight when we get to Wall.

Note to Cameron: Since we know we are going to Wall, SD, I am going to use your suggestion again and make reservations this morning. (although it was sure fun to make the reservations from the parking lot last night)

Keep reading bloggers, we are having so much fun!
Love to all
Wayne and Colleen

Gandy and Stapleton Nebraska

Hey Bloggers, today was really exciting for me. We got up this morning in Cheyenne, Wyoming and drove to North Platte Nebraska. Then we turned North and went to two little towns (and I mean LITTLE towns) where my Dad and his family lived a very long time ago. Our first stop was the post office in Stapleton. We had a chat with a very nice lady there and she said she didn't know of any Kelleys or Applebys in town now. She did know an Albert Kelley which was my Great Grandfather's name, but this Albert Kelley was much younger and as far as I know, my graddad didn't have any brothers or cousins or anyone named Albert.

The Post Office lady told us about a church bazaar/flea market going on at the Presbyterian Church just down the street. So off we went, located the church (not hard to do in a town with a population of 220) and entered the social hall where about 20-30 people were milling around. I located the one who looked the oldest (no, I didn't tell her that was why I spoke to her) and introduced myself and Wayne and told her what we were looking for. I asked her if she had lived in Stapleton very long. She straightened her back, put her shoulders back and with all authority and pride she said "Have I lived here very long? Only all my life.....85 Years !" She was so cute and obviously very proud of living in the tiny little town literally in the middle of nowhere.

I told her what we were looking for and she started to tell me about some Kelleys she knew and mentioned a few names but no one I recognized. She seemed to know a lot of them though. Then another lady walked up and joined the conversation. I explained it to her and she said right off "Well I knew a Ray Appleby"..........that was my grandmother's brother! It was so exciting making connections with someone who knew a member of my family! We stood and exchanged names and anecdotes and I took their picture with Wayne. They thought that was really great to have their picture taken with "that young fellow"..........

We looked around their sale items and Wayne found a wooden folding yardstick which was imprinted with the name of a hardware store from long ago in Stapleton. He thought it would b nice to have since it had Stapleton on it. A lady walked up to us and began talking and explained that her husband's brother owned that hardware store a very long time ago. So, being the prolific picture taker that I am, I asked if it were alright for me to take her picture with Wayne and the yardstick. Both pictures of Wayne with all his new girlfriends will be posted tonight.

We then left Stapleton and went to Gandy which was "just across the road" as one of the ladies told us. Let me tell you, Gandy makes Stapleton look like a huge metropolis! Gandy has 51 happy souls living in it. It was incredible! We drove all around (took about 2 minutes), took some pictures and couldn't find anyone to talk to so we left. That little town has so much personality, both of the towns really are quaint and full of such good vibes, you just know very nice people live there.

We then drove north to Valentine Nebraska where we are tonight. There is a big rodeo in town, something about the MidState Finals or something, but we are both pooped and it's a bit too chilly for us to sit outside in a rodeo.

Note to Cameron: We took your suggestion about making the reservation from the parking lot. We drove around, decided to stay at the Holiday Inn Express. We parked in the parking lot, Wayne got the laptop out of the trunk, made a reservation online, pulled around in front of the hotel and went in to get our room! According to the desk clerk, our room normally rents for $85 and I'm not sure it wouldn't have been more if we just walked in with no reservation. We actually got it for $76. The website said the room rents for $85 - $120 and we got it with AARP discount for $76. Not bad, huh? Thanks Cameron for the suggestion!!!

Not sure where we will go tomorrow but we plan to be in Sioux Falls on Sunday. I have been forgetting to tell you about our little game we are playing. During the 3rd or 4th day out, we started noticing lots of different license plates. We started writing them down as we saw them and currently we have 32 different states on our list! I know, I know, simple things make simple people happy. As of today we have been in 7 states and tomorrow will be 8 when we get into South Dakota.

Thanks to all who are reading this and we would really appreciate comments and emails anytime.

Note to Lisa: Nice talking to you today. Really want you to know I love you very much.

Hope everyone who is reading this is having a fantastic time in their lives just like we are.
We love you all and please keep reading.
Love
Wayne and Colleen

2000+ Miles down and ???? To Go

Hi again bloggers, it's the weary travelers here. Today was a bit quiet. We left Sheridan Wyoming this morning after visiting one of the western stores and completing the transformation of my cowboy cabbie husband into a real cowboy!!! He now has a great black Stetson, some George Strait jeans and a new shirt, all to go with his 5 ft walking stick he got in the Grand Tetons. The only thing left is the boots, but he's drawing the line there, no boots. Dockers just stand out too much in Montana and Wyoming. Cowboys everywhere! Anyway, he looks so cool, I love it !! I have a picture we took of him yesterday, but it's before the jeans and shirt.

We are in Cheyenne, Wyoming tonight in a Holiday Inn. We decided to get a nice room tonight after spending a rough night last night in a local motel in Sheridan. It was so small, I actually took a picture of it! I will post it tonight.

Today we traveled the North/South length of Wyoming. It was a very pretty drive and we saw lots of pretty scenery and lots of wild antelopes in the plains. Cheyenne is a big town and we drove around and around looking for a room for tonight and finally spotted the Holiday Inn. We had a great steak dinner in the restaurant here at the hotel (why not, right? after all we are in Wyoming) and now are going to stretch out and enjoy being still and not moving in the car!

We have traveled over 2000 miles as of tonight. It sure doesn't feel like that, but we have taken a week to do that much. It's not so much each day. We actually have taken it easy each day and not knocked ourselves out at all.

Tomorrow we plan to cross into Nebraska and see the little towns of Gandy and Stapleton which I remember my grandmother talking about. Dad was born somewhere around there. We plan to be in Sioux Falls by Sunday but looks like we might make it by Saturday unless we take a down day and stay in Nebraska for two days.

We figured out that the reason we are so tired each night is that we have been in elevations from 5000+ to 8000+ feet each day since we left Nevada. We seem to hit our room and melt each night. In Yellowstone it got up over 8000 feet and here in Cheyenne we are still over 5000. We are blaming the elevation of course instead of admitting we are just getting older!

We are so happy to hear from some of you who are reading our blog. It's nice to know you are traveling with us vicariously.

Note to Kevin: This "city girl" as you put it, is able to enjoy lots of different things including open spaces. That does NOT change my love for our beautiful City of SAN FRANCISCO. You insist on using the "F" word but the name of our home is SAN FRANCISCO. Practice saying it over and over to yourself and you will get it one day, c'mon now, I know you can do it !!! LOL

Going to close now and start posting some of the pictures we took yesterday at the Little Big Horn Battlefield. We didn't really take any pictures to speak of today. Enjoy the pics!

Keep reading, we love all of you
Wayne and Colleen

A Little History Lesson for Today

Ok, Bloggers, today we have a bit of a history lesson. Can anyone tell me where the Little Big Horn Battlefield is??? What happened on that land? Well, we learned a lot about it yesterday.
It is Thursday Morning, Sept 13 right now. We are in Sheridan Wyoming and the dinky little home town motel we are staying in has a very weak and slow signal so I won't be posting any pictures today. We have lots of great pics of the battlefield but it just takes forever to get anything done here so we are going to try to just type the post and we will post the pics at our next stop when hopefully we have a better signal.
The battlefield is in the southeast part of Montana between Billings, MT and Sheridan Wyoming. On this area (actually about 5 miles altogether) was where General George Armstrong Custer and his men were killed by a contingent of the Lakota Sioux and various other plains indian tribes. There were some survivors as Custer split up his command and not all were killed on Last Stand Hill with him. There was a great little museum where actual artifacts that had been retrieved from the battlefield are on display. There are small white markers dotted across about 5 miles of battlefield where calvarymen fell. These spots are verified by first hand testimony from both indian and calvary survivors. Also, archeologists have combed the entire area and recovered bones, snips of material from uniforms, watch pieces, various ammunition and other items lost on the battlefield that day. And that day, boys and girls, was only 130 years ago. It happened on June 25 and 26 in 1876. Pretty incredible to me that such a thing was only approximately 130 years ago.

The weather was very warm and the wind was blowing real hard. We both got windburn and I felt like I was drying out all over. I got back to the room and bathed myself in moisturizer to try to get my skin back!

We are in Sheridan Wyoming now and couldn't get a good signal last night to post this blog............sorry, Kevin LOL

This morning we are going south through Wyoming and planning to then go east through Nebraska then cut north to be in Sioux Falls South Dakota by Sunday. We get to see Nicole on Monday the 17th.

We will post yesterday's pictures of the battlefield tonight when we get a better signal. We also took a picture of this tiny tiny room we are in, I couldn't believe it is so small!!! I had to get a picture.

Note to Lisa: thanks for the email and comments on the blog. I hope all is well with you, I miss talking to you! We have not had cell phone signals
since we left Yellowstone. I am hoping it will get better today.

Note to Cathie: Thanks for your email too. It's fun knowing everyone is following our adventure! I answered your email last night but it didn't actually go through until this morning. I hope you got it.

Note to Kevin: No, we won't get too tired and we are driving very carefully (Wayne is doing most of the driving LOL) . We can't wait for the trip with you. I can't let myself think about it, it is so exciting to think I will actually get to see the inside of Graceland! Wow!

Another Note to Kevin and to Mom: Do you remember exactly where Dad was born? I remember he and Grandma talking about Gandy and/or Stapleton Nebraska, but not sure. We will be in Nebraska tomorrow and thought we would look up the area where they lived.

Note to Everyone: Thanks for following our blog. We are so excited about this trip, you just cannot imagine. We are seeing such beautiful and new things that simply go beyond words. We have had incredible good luck everywhere we have gone and have no complaints about anything. (Well, this room is a bit much but oh well)

Talk to you all again tonight.......Love to All
Wayne and Colleen

and the Deer and the Antelope Play............

Yesterday was where the buffalo roam and today we saw ......where the deer and the antelope play. We didn't get a picture of the deer, but we saw them. We also saw a grizzly bear. Real exciting to see that. Up ahead there were lots of cars stopping (always a sign of a sighting of something) and people pointing. We pulled over and searched the spot the people were pointing at and there he was, a dark colored grizzly bear. A park ranger was there to keep the traffic moving and to be sure everyone who stopped got off the road. He said if they don't do that, people will stop in the middle of the road and get out leaving their car doors open and everything. Anyway, he confirmed it was indeed a grizzly. He said some people thought it was a black bear because he was so dark, but he was a grizzly. We didn't get a picture because when we got out and got into position, he had gone up a draw and was gone.

We went through a part of the park today that we had not yet been. Three days for Yellowstone is a bare minimum to spend. It's so breathtaking and exciting to see all the wildlife up close and personal. And with this new camera of mine, it is so user friendly that it adds to the fun to get such good pics so easily.

We left the park today at the northern exit and went through the Roosevelt Gate. It was a sad goodbye to a beautiful place, but we will come back again. We are talking about coming back through here again on our way back home.

We are in Livingston Montana now. We stopped travelling a bit early today. We both needed a rest and to stop moving for a while! Not sure where we will go tomorrow, but we plan to go east through Montana and see the Little Big Horn.

Where the Buffalo Roam......We Found It !!!!

Well the memory card we needed for my camera is no longer made. We wandered into Radio Shack and got the news about the card. But, not to worry, they had this cute little number on sale and we got the greatest new camera for almost nothing. I had no idea you could get such a camera for so little. We got a brand new camera, batteries, memory card and out the door for $102.00. And let me tell you this little jewel is great! It has video and is so user friendly. It's really cool.

We have now spent two days in Yellowstone and Grand Teton. We could travel the world for the rest of our natural life and not have a greater two days! The things we have seen and experienced are miraculous. Like I said before, if any of you have not been here yet, you really need to make this trip. But set aside a lot of time, at least two days, to see the park. There is so much to see, it's really incredible..

We have seen buffalo up close and personal. Once I was taking pics of this guy who was right beside the road. I was taking the pics from the car. I decided it would be safe to get out and get a little different angle and I opened the door and got out. Thankfully I looked over my shoulder because only about 20 feet behind me was his buddy who was looking right at me. Needless to say I got right back in the car!

We have seen elk too. We have one picture that isn't the best, but it's of a huge elk with antlers at least 4 1/2 or 5 feet tall. It was incredible to see. He was moving and I didn't get a real good picture, but you can see it.

We saw a wolf in a meadow. He was moving too fast to get a good picture but it was so exciting to see him. We also saw geese that were beautiful. It was so cool to see all these creatures in the wild and so close to the car. The animals don't seem to be afraid of people at all. In fact we saw buffalo stop traffic by just slowing plodding across the street. After two or three of them got across the street, a little calf went skampering after them! We saw so many buffalo that after a while we didn't even stop to look, just "oh, there's another one"...

We have met and talked to lots of nice people. I don't know if it's this time of year or what, but a big majority of the people we see here are just like us, about our age. We noticed the almost total lack of kids in the park the last two days and I guess it's because school has started and their vacations are over. There weren't many young couples with small children either, just old folks like us!

The most fun was when we got to Old Faithful and some folks told us about the webcam. They have a live webcam mounted on a tree and aiming towards the geyser. People were standing there and then calling someone on their cell phones and waving. I couldn't figure out what the heck people were waving at a tree for! So, when we found out, I called Mom and Wayne called Jim and they were able to see us live at Old Faithful! In fact, Jim even somehow saved the image and emailed it to Wayne and we had it when we got back to our room last night! Oh technology, isn't it wonderful?!!

We have had such a seamless time on this trip so far. We have had good food, good rooms, no real problems. The Boss is really with us on this trip and we are very thankful.

So, today it's Montana. We are headed for the Little Big Horn where Custer bought it. Not sure where we will stop for the night, but I will blog again if we get a signal.

Mom, forgot to tell you, I brought my pillows with me and it's really nice having them! As you know, I love these Sobekawa pillows and can't imagine sleeping without them. In order to insure that we don't forget to take them each day when we move, they have their own canvas bag so when I see the empty bag, I know I have to get the pillows off the bed. Oh, the things we have to do when the memory fades!

I have been trying to download some video I took of the buffalo but it's taking sooooooo long to download. Not sure it will work. I will get some pics now to post. Hope everyone is all well and enjoying our blog.

Note to Anonymous (Kevin?) No, we are not going to get too tired. We are looking forward to our next trip next month, you know that.!!!

Even Better than Yesterday !!!

Sorry about the pictures and no posting, the hotel's server went down just as I was in the middle of posting the pictures and had not typed a posting as yet. So, it's Monday morning now and I can finally tell you about the Sunday we had.

After we ran through all the usual words and phrases; spectacular, beautiful, gorgeous, wow, can't believe it, magnificent, isn't that great......we were left with "(gasp) OH MY GOD" After a while, we just were out of words and things to say and just held each other's hand and breathed it in. The Grand Tetons and the part of Yellowstone that we have seen are the most magnificent (there I go again) thing to see. It was incredible. We both just kept searching for the right words to describe it and we just ran out of words. There are no words to describe it well enough. In fact, we are going to come back through here on the way home and see it again.

We stayed in West Yellowstone, Montana last night. It's just outside the west entrance of Yellowstone. We plan to stay here again tonight because we are going to take the whole day and go through other parts of the park we didn't see yesterday

There was some trouble yesterday with the memory card on my camera. We had noticed before that one or two pictures were missing when we downloaded them into the computer. It started with our picture of Penny at Avis in SF, the very first picture we took. After finding out last night that we had "lost" several pictures that we took yesterday, we decided the memory card must be shot. We are hoping to find another today so that we don't lose anymore pictures.

Wayne was excited to see his first buffalo outside a zoo. Yes, he actually saw "where the buffalo roam".... We also saw some elk beside the road. When we had lunch at one of the lodges in the Grand Teton Park, we went into the gift shop and Wayne bought a six foot tall rough wood (knots and all) walking stick. It has a leather strap for your hand. It's really great. He has already used it and loves it. In fact, I took a couple pictures of him and his stick and of course they are among the ones we lost.

We can't tell you enough how magnificent this area is. The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone is a must see for everyone. I cannot believe that I have lived this long and had not seen it before this. If you haven't been here you really need to make your way here somehow. It is incredible.

I am going to post some more pictures from yesterday then hopefully when we get back tonight I can have more for you.

Oh, forgot to tell you, we are truly card carrying old people now. Upon entering Grand Teton Park, we saw the prices were $25.00 per carload. There also was something called a lifetime pass so we asked about that. It is $10.00 and gets you into all National Parks for lifetime. You have to be 62 to qualify and guess how old we are !!! So we now have a lifetime pass for seniors!! When we got to Yellowstone, Wayne flashed our card and in we went!

Note to self: MUST come back here, this is truly where God lives.

Off to another day in Yellowstone today...............more later.
Love to all
Wayne and Colleen