Meandering the Country

May 28 - June 2   Mary Jo, I can’t thank you enough for reading my blog and contacting me to let me know you were going to be in Colorado Springs the same weekend we were there!  Mary Jo and I met 43 years ago while student teaching in Kansas City.  We both were Home Economics Education majors participating in the Cultural Urban Teaching Experience (CUTE) offered through Iowa State University as well as other universities. Following our successful student teaching experience, we both accepted teaching positions with the Kansas City School District and began our careers together as roommates.  We hadn’t seen each other in 41 years, having kept in touch through Christmas cards and Facebook.  What a joy it was to see each other again and catch up, even a tiny bit!  Mary Jo retired the day before we got together in Colorado Springs.  Pretty cool that I was able to be with her to celebrate the beginning and ending of Mary Jo’s ...

We arrived in Salt Lake City on Thursday, May 20th and hit the ground running! We  haven't  seen the kids in nearly a year and we had to make up for lost time!  It was fun surprising Josh and Eva when we picked them up after school.  Having them running into our arms and greeting us with their warm hugs certainly made our day!  Picking up Josh and Eva after school! Violin practice - what a treat for Nana and Papa! Ice cream for an after school treat! Behind Brandon and Anne's home is the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.  Salt Lake City is where Bonneville Lake existed eighteen thousand years ago!  Bonneville Lake was 1000 feet deep and covered 20,000 square  miles.  Hiking even a small section of the trail marking the shoreline of this ancient lake offers spectacular views of the city as well as the Wasatch Mountains!  The spring flowers were still blooming.  Reveling in the beauty of God's creation was continuous on these hikes.  E...

Go West, Old Man!   May 9-14, 2021   Minneapolis is as far north as our travels take us this year.  Our focus now will be to the west, spending the fall in Oregon and California.  Winter plans are still a bit loose; however, we will be looking at taking the southern US route back east from California. It will be a year before we are back in the Midwest.     Along our path west we have a couple of more opportunities for family and friends!  We tend to aim for each leg of our trip to take us around 250 miles.  That seems to be a comfortable amount of road time, allowing us to do a bit of exploring once we have settled in at our new location.   As luck has it, 252 miles from Minneapolis is Cherry Glen Campground, located on Saylorville Lake near Ankeny, Iowa!  First on our list was to get new tires for the 5 th  wheel.  Wear and tear on the original, factory RV tires finally reached the poin...