REMEMBERING: What did you do this summer.....famous back to school question....

The journey westward...or better what two old retirees did in their free time!!!

It all began on Friday August 5th....or no really it began several years ago when we sent Laura off to EFY Calgary...and now several years later she has graduated from Dalhousie University and one week later( from Grad) started work at the Foothills Hospital as a CT tech..The van that you see in the first picture is loaded with her rubbermaid containers and is Alberta bound.

Farewell to Nova Scotia

Border crosssing

We headed off on our journey and made it as far as Bangor the first night. We could have certainly gone farther, but stopped for a visit with Becky Buxton and family.Next photo is one of our Comfort Inn rooms.

What closed....new Ben and Jerry's in Freeport

Then we ventured on through New York, and Pennsylvania and the Pocono. This area has many events including NASCAR racing, and if you land there when it's race time this is what your room may look like.....our rest stop sleeping accomodations

Early wake up call .....that's am...Bill wasn't too comfortable!!

We saw many many sites along the way, miles of highways, freeways, farmlands and big cities

We were also impressed with the multitudes of wind farms.....groups of twenty or more at a time.

One special stop that we made along the way was in Storm Lake Iowa to see our friends,Roy and Michelle Grant and their sweet family of boys. We had a wonderful visit, BBQ, games night, and rest.The boys have grown into fine young men.Here is the youngest, Evan who is an amazing mathematian, and lots of fun playing scrabble, and blurb. We was so friendly, and made us feel so welcome

Here are Tyler and Ryan....all grown up indeed. Tyler just finished some university time and is waiting for his mission call, Ryan is in high school and works with some special needs groups in the summer.

Here are Mom and Dad just before Dad heads of to work at the hospital. Michelle is doing an amazing job raising her family ( and teaches early morning seminary) It was great to visit with them!!!

Continuing on north westernly ( we are really headed for Calgary)...we were warned that we were heading into Sturgis celebrations. ( remember what NASCAR did) You might want to google that word Sturgis....it is quite the event for those who enjoy motorcycles.....10,000 plus indeed!!! Here are more scenes along the way... first....corn corn corn....oh how I have such a new appreciation for those in the farming profession....yours is a love of labour indeed and you make our land so beautiful.

We also saw lots of soybean farms coloring the fields in coats of yello...but this on close discovery was actually sunflower plants

and of course there were bales and bales and bales of hay

Bill's buffalo burger.....no thanks

I couldn't leave out Wall, South Dakota...this drugstore is the best advertised place on the I-80...you just have to visit there!!!

Bill catching the western Spirit....no he didn't buy the hat

So on to Sturgis...we actually avoided this town on our map, and took the first hotel that we could before Sturgis...Rapid City South Dakota. Bill experienced Buffalo Burgers at Casey's Cafe in Chamberlain SD. After checking in to our hotel, and a yummy dinner at the Pizza Ranch we headed to view Mount Rushmore...a good one for your Bucket List. On the 30 minute drive there we started counting motor bikes....at least 400 hundred on the way there....and hundreds more in the parking lots when we arrived. Our van looked very out of place. Back to Rushmore.....here are a few of my million photos!!!!