Sunday, May 15, 2016

Graduation Day!  This big day finally arrived for Regan.  He graduated from De Smet Jesuit High School, and will be attending the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO.  He will be majoring in biomedical engineering.  It was obvious that, Regan has made many great friends at this school, and it has been a good choice for him.  He is ready for college!  Graduation took place at the Basilica in downtown St. Louis, and was very nice.  They had 161 graduates and all of them are going on to college some place.  It was a great weekend, and wonderful family time.  David and Mary Jean Kennedy, also made the journey from Waunakee, WI for the occasions of the weekend, and it was great to see everyone, and spend some quality time with them.  

 Regan with his godparents, David and Mary Jean Kennedy.  The Kennedy's were our neighbors back in Waunakee, so it was great when Mary Jean's brother, Philip married our daughter, Judy!

 Regan with us before the graduation ceremony.

 We all need a sense of humor, and Regan's sisters, Shea and Mackenzie will make sure he stays grounded!  Just 'poking' a little fun at him!

 Regan's immediate family: father, Philip, sister, Shea (14), Regan, sister, Mackenzie (16) and mom, Judy.

 The Great Thinker....a penny for your thoughts!

Inside the Basilica.....beautiful.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

It's really Monday, but we have been in a whirlwind weekend and I'm going to recap things, according to the day.  Friday night we attended the musical, "Broadway", that our grandson, Regan performed in.  He was one of four guys picked to participate in an all girl's high school musical, so needless to say, he had a blast!  "Broadway" is a musical that I wasn't familiar with, but it was quite entertaining.  It was a compilation of several successful Broadway Shows rolled into one.  I will post a few pictures from that event, and move on to the next day.

This is 'Hello Dolly' and Regan is front left.

 Regan needed footie pj's for 'Telephone Hour'.  Cute!

 Regan center, had the lead in 'West Side Story'.  He did an awesome job! 

 This segment was from 'A Chorus Line' and sung by the seniors.

After the performance, Regan and the girls.

Friday, May 13, 2016 - Friday the 13th!

We arrived in St. Louis yesterday and still had a tail wind, and lots of traffic.  We really enjoyed Hillsdale State park south of Kansas City, and will return there next fall.  We are going to be staying in St. Louis until next week, and weather will dictate when we leave.  We are seeing strong storms for later today or tonight and rain again on Monday and Tuesday.  Our weather radio went off as soon as we got in yesterday, announcing that the river will crest sometime today or tomorrow, only to recede on Sunday.  BUT heavy rain is coming on Monday and Tuesday.  We shouldn't be affected by that, but we have known this park to close due to flooding.  We had today to get acclimated to our new park, and we just love this campground.  It was only opened in 2011 and they have made so many improvements since then, adding more bike path to the already walking/bike path that they had.  We went geo-caching around the lake here this morning, only to realize we had to go farther than we wanted to walk, so we went back for our bikes.  We ended up riding 8 miles on our bikes and we didn't find the final stage of the cache!  It was still enjoyable and I'll post the wildlife that we saw so far today.  We are going to the musical tonight that our grandson, Regan is in, so we look forward to that.  I hope to get some pictures to post on tomorrow's blog from tonight's musical.

 This is the gate that welcomes us to 370 Lakeside Campground in St. Peters, MO. Business must be good, as they are adding on another large section beyond where we are parked.  I would recommend this park to anyone traversing this way and in need of a campground. 

 They have many picnic areas in the park, but this is the largest park shelter that can be rented for private parties.  It overlooks the lake, and seats a lot of people. 

 We were on Stage 2 of our geo-cache, which was a multi with 4 stages.  I turned over a rock and found this little guy underneath!  I think he was as surprised as I was!  I just covered him back up and it did end our searching.  We read that Stage 2 was missing, anyway.

 This is another picnic area that extends over the water.  You can see some small boats that are rentals.  They also have kayaks to rent, as well.

We rode our bikes on the bike path and discovered that they added some new trails since we were here last.  It takes you past a lot of protected wetland areas and we saw lots of birds.  This is a beautiful Great White Heron.  We also saw some Purple Martens in one of their many houses they have erected here in the park.  We last heard that the Purple Martens had been killed in a terrible storm and it's been slow to recover their numbers.  It was gratifying to see them here. 

The Canadian Goose is having their young, and this is one of many families that we saw here.  The park works hard to protect the wildlife here, and we appreciate that. 

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

I didn't post anything yesterday, as we drove a little farther than we had planned, and there was nothing much exciting to write about.  We are still staying away from the storms, although, today we were just a couple of hours behind it.  We stayed in Valley Center, KS last night, which is just north of Wichita.  We traveled through the TX/OK panhandles yesterday, and saw large feed lots, grain elevators and storage bins about every 8 to 10 miles apart, and every other truck we met on the highway, was a cattle hauler!  We got slimed by one.....OYE!  We saw a huge pork processing plant in Texas and another very large processing plant for beef, in Oklahoma, so it's big business down there.  We left the North Star Campground in Valley Center this morning, after checking the weather, and we felt we would get into the Hillsdale Campground, in eastern KS after the storms had passed through.  They had two inches of rain early this morning in two hours!  Our camp host also told us that they had hail with it.  That's one nasty storm passing through the country.  Hillsdale is one of the newest reservoirs in Kansas, and was completed in 1982 by the Corps of Engineers.  The campground is managed by the Kansas State Park System and it is run like a Corps of Engineer Park.  We have wanted to stay here for several years now, and decided that it worked into our plan for this trip, and we are very satisfied here.  With all the rain we had today, we weren't able to hike or bike on their bike trail, but we think we'll return in the fall, when we head southwest.  We did find two geo-caches of the fifteen they had hidden here, and Jim had a wood tick on him, immediately.  Tomorrow we will arrive in St. Louis for a busy weekend with our daughter, Judy and her family.  Of course, I will post 'as we are still traveling'!

 This was an awesome scene with the cowboy rounding up his cattle.  A bit blurry as it was taken through our motor home window and we were on the move!

 I missed the Kansas welcome sign, but this was a billboard in Liberal.  We all know how famous these four characters are! 

 This is the entrance to the Hillsdale Lake Park and camping area.  It's in eastern KS, just north of Paola.

I captured this very pretty bird in the park area and will have to research it.  It had a very long tail, and was so strikingly beautiful! I should have done my search first, as I found out that this bird is a Scissor Tail Flycatcher. 

Monday, May 9, 2016

We debated this morning, about leaving with the winds being pretty strong.  We walked over to the Indian bakery next to the campground, and bought two loaves of their infamous bread.  We put one in the freezer and will eat the other one on the road :-O!  Jim decided we would go as he thought we would have a tail wind and he was right.  We had no problems, and got as far as Dalhart, TX.  We are back on central DST!  We went from the red rock sandstone cliffs, to the grasslands in eastern NM, to the flat plains in the Texas Panhandle.  We even saw an abundance of wildflowers on the roadside in eastern NM.  Lots of yellow, white, lavender, and orange flowers adorned the roadsides and banks. We will keep an eye on the storms that are supposed to be in the Midwest by today, and we think we will be okay again tomorrow.  We see the tornadoes are south of Oklahoma City, but storms go up into Kansas, so we'll stay behind it, as well as we can.  Our route is to go north into Kansas and stay away from the Oklahoma City area.

 This is the west end of Old Laguna, the Pueblo Mission where Jim's sister, Ginny lived for 13 years.  You will  notice the adobe church atop the hill, and there's an el added to the church.  That was her living quarters.  She looked out her kitchen window to see Mt. Taylor.  It was a beautiful sight!

 This is another shot of the village, as we drove past it from the interstate.  The church is now on the left side of the picture. It is designated a scenic pull off on I-40, west of Albuquerque .

We are entering Texas from New Mexico, and we're back on Central DST!  Notice the dark clouds ahead of us.  They have disappeared as we settled into our campground in Dalhart, TX.

This is one of two, very large CAFO's on Hwy. 54 south of Dalhart.  We certainly hope the wind is in the right direction for our campground tonight. 

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there!  We left Page and had a very scenic drive from Page, all the way to Exit 108 on I-40, near Old Laguna, NM.  Page has the beautiful red sandstone rock, and we will most likely return again some day for the 4th time!  I will post some pictures and explain them, so I will make this post short. 

 We're just south of Page, and the landscape is so beautiful with the red sandstone.

 I think this is the area that had the problem with heaving, to close 89 two years ago.

 The rock formations turn to a lighter hue the farther south we are from Page.  We are still north of Flagstaff.  We had good travels, but we did have some wind as the day progressed.

 We saw a lot of snow on top of Mt. Humphrey, north of Flagstaff.  We could see the rains moving in and we actually, had snow showers!  We were over 7,000 feet elevation at times today and never broke 60.

 I didn't crop this picture so you could see the gorgeous scenery in the area coming into New Mexico.

 New Mexico has some of it's own beauty, as well.  We just love the southwest and the diversity of it all.

How often can you arrange to hook up with very dear friends, when you are out traveling about?  Pete and Alie Neufeld left Mesa today, and are staying the next exit west of us at Sky City.  When we knew they were going to be that close, we just had to have a happy hour!  It was such a treat to see them 'on the road', and we had many good laughs!  They are on their way to Kansas, to their other home!

Saturday, May 7, 2016

We had rain all night and into the morning today, as predicted, so we waited for it to clear, so we could stock up on groceries before we leave tomorrow.  The temps have dropped also, and it was about 61 today.  Sweatshirt weather, which we love!  We decided to say good-bye to our friends at the Canyon King Pizzeria and dining place, and then take Stu and Linda's recommendation to eat at Big John's BBQ.  We had a great meal there!  We had baby back ribs that the meat fell off the bone.  It was a diner, and not the place like Canyon King where we have fun with the staff.  It was a good way to end our stay here, and we'll move to Exit 108, Dancing Eagles Campground and Casino in NM tomorrow.  We have guests coming for Happy Hour!  We're so excited.

 Departing from Canyon King Pizzeria and Diner.  Sean is the cool kid that we have fun with and Gary, the owner is on the far right.  He's a hippy throw back from the '70's.  We really do enjoy this place.

 I snagged a picture from the truck as we turned the corner of the Texas BBQ place.

 This is their sign out on the street front.  It was very good and we would eat there again.  Thanks, Linda and Stu!