moonwriter

Well, we left our "happy place"---Montana and made our way into Idaho and through the Craters of the Moon Nat'l Monument. Wow, Boise and Meridian and Nampa have grown since we were here a few years ago! Wazoo! Speaking of Wazoo we went to Wahooz Family Fun Center and Roaring Springs Water Park today as well as a funny dinner at Donnie Mac's Trailer Park Cuisine ---where trailer trash food is served at its finest! (Gail, you will love this....) (I could feel you laughing) We have 4 sets of friends (all different families) who live in Nampa now so we visited everyone yesterday. Tomorrow we set sail for CA and home---a 9 hours drive. Wow, what an adventure this 2 1/2 month trip has been! 11,000 + miles.... read more

Today we enjoyed Runamuk Guest Ranch in Roundup, MT where we played in the Musselshell River and rode around on quads (on just a fraction of the tens of thousands of acres here) and went horseback riding, and ate dinner on a high mountain top and granite outcropping overlooking a half dozen mt. ranges and several bordering states---Big Sky Country at it's finest!... read more

We left Mt. Rushmore yesterday only after a terrific helicopter flight over Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse where we saw buffalo. We also did the Alpine Slide there too. Then we ate at Peggy's Place for breakfast and then drove to Devil's Tower, WY where they filmed Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We rode funky lowrider 3 wheelers at the KOA there and checked into our cabin and then a fascinating local rock climbing instructor, musician/ bed and breakfast inkeeper gave us a terrific tour of his private property at the base of the tower where he takes folks climbing to the top daily. We ate dinner at the KOA. It rained all night and the next day we rode horses around Devil's Tower which was great even though it rained. We saw a mother ... read more

We left Mankato, MN a few days ago and drove along the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway to Walnut Grove, MN (On the Banks of Plum Creek). We waded in "Plum Creek," by Laura's real dugout house from the 1800's. It was so much prettier than when I was there in wintertime years ago. The blooming prairie grasses and flowers were exactly as she described in her books. The whole town was going crazy with hundreds of visitors for the LIW pageant that night. We even spotted a crab under the same big rock where 150 years ago Laura tricked the famed Nellie Oleson, in Plum Creek, with a crab in that creek. After we ate a big pageant dinner at the little local community center we went to the pageant in our dresses and bonnets ... read more

We have really hopped around and covered miles the last three days. Before leaving Springfield, MO we ate our last breakfast there at Mudhouse---a local favorite and then toured Fantastic Caverns for my second time and we had to eat at Andy's Frozen Custard one last time again before we left---nothing like it! We traveled on 255N over the Mississippi River AGAIN and stopped in St. Louis to touch the GI-NORMOUS St. Louis Arch. It was 76 degrees and cooler. Then we crossed the Mississippi again into Illinois. We ate dinner at the Ariston Cafe, the oldest existing restaurant on Route 66 and quite a little gem...the best liver and onions I have ever had and even the kid loved the liver! The elderly guy who runs it inherited it from his grandparents (about a century ... read more