Great Football Weekend in Louisiana

I had a wonderful time in Louisiana with my cousin Marty, his son Garret and friend Tom. It's great when you get to see two winning games in one weekend, especial when on of the games involves the New Orleans Saints!

The Travel Blogger is back!

OK, we fell behind on the blog, ok, we abandoned the blog! We left St Louis on 14 August and made our way up to Zion, Illinois, which is right on the border with Wisconsin, to attend our son's girlfriend's mom's wedding. Very nice ceremony and reception at a historic 18th century coach inn (now a private home) which belongs to the groom's best friend. We then made it back to Virginia safe and sound in late August, but Kim had to turn around and go back to St. Louis to take care of her mom, who fell ill, and her grandma. That made me a geo-bachelor, so what did I do, well I'm in New Orleans, Louisiana, today waiting for my cousin, Marty to arrive so we can go the the LSU football game on Saturday and the Saints game on Sunday...of course there's going to be some consumption of Cajun food along the way!!

Visiting Relatives in the St Louis, Missouri area

During the past week we have been in the St Louis area visiting relatives. We will be heading north to attend a wedding in Illinois and then we will start our last leg of our trip back to Virginia.

Heading to St Louis via Kansas, 05 August 2009

Well, the kid's trip to the west is almost over. Just a couple of more stops in a small town in Kansas to visit their departed relatives at the Nortonville cemetery and then off to Topeka to see their great aunts and uncle. We're all be back in St Louis on Thursday, 06 August, just in time for Brian and Amber to register for school.

Wall Drug & the Badlands NP, 04 August 2009

It was time to start heading "back east" from the Black Hills, South Dakota, on Tuesday, 04 August; but we had time to stop at the famous Wall Drug Store (it's really a mall now) and then we drove east through the Badlands National Park. Once again Brian and Amber showed they were fearless as they walked out on narrow ridges that went down 100s of feet...we figured that if they fell, we would just have to jump in after them (we wouldn't be able to face their parents)! After that it was hard interstate driving east and then south to Iowa.

Black Hills, Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, 03 August 2009

We arrived at Mount Rushmore National Monument at 0801 on Monday, 03 Aug, to beat all the 2009 Surgis Motorcycle Rally bikers. We hiked a new park path built since we last visited here in 1998. The hiking path runs just at the foot of Mt. Rushmore...awesome sights. We then sped off to the Crazy Horse Monument to see what progress they have made in the last 11 years; it was hard to see at first, but once we compared pictures from 98 we could see how they had cut off the front of the mountain. We then took a vintage 1880 train ride through the Black Hills from Hill City to Keystone and then back.

Devils Tower, Wyoming & Bikers Rally, 02 AUG 2009

On Sunday, 02 Aug, we had a great hiking day at Devil's Tower National Monument in Wyoming. It also happened to be the first day of the Sturgis Rally Devil's Tower Ride, so many bikes and bikers! Actually really fun. We all loved the hike around Devil's Tower, every few feet we were amazed how the look of Devil's Tower changed. A truly awesome work of nature.