ROAD TRIP !

I don't exactly know when I asked our daughter Leslie to plan a family reunion for all the siblings that live on the mainland. Well, as time marched on, we had an inkling of an idea to hold some sort of family get together. Trying to coordinate everyones schedule was the hardest challenge. In the end, we had to make some alterations and call it a vacation trip or road trip instead of a reunion.

Rachel and her family could only come in June and they did so. Any later than that, then she wouldn't be allowed to travel, our grandson Wyatt is soon to arrive. Also our daughter Erin is expecting, making long road trips a bit of a challenge, plus Mark's new job is a priority. So, in the end, we asked Erin to watch the Ipo doggie while we left for North Dakota. Praise to Erin for watching the Ipo doggie because Mom was really concerned the whole trip. The only thing Erin needs to work on is learning how to spot the vegetables among the growing weeds in the garden. I checked it yesterday, and came away with several large zucchinis and tomatoes.

Prior to leaving, we coordinated our trip with Leslie, Troy, and the family. We planned to meet up in Buffalo, WY. They had their agenda and made it to Wyoming alright. We did alright, making it to the hotel earlier in the day. We had a fun time visiting and had dinner together. The next morning, we switched navigators, little buddy was my first officer and worked the navigation using the Garmin GPS, or as Mom called it, "your lady." It has a ladies voice giving directions.

Little buddy and I drove to Devils Tower National Monument and waited for the rest of the family to finish their fabric shopping to join us. We had a great time. I was very impressed with little buddy's rightfulness or honesty. We had the opportunity to park in a more convenient spot using Mom's handicapped parking placard, but little buddy thought that wouldn't be honest, so we didn't use the parking card. He did a great job navigating.

After visiting the monument, the rest of the family caught up and then we split up again, this time, Mom and I drove to North Dakota to Minot, while the rest of the family went further into the Black Hills of South Dakota. Later they came up to Minot and we again had a grand time with all the children playing together. We had a fun visit with our Minotian family.

We celebrated Bun's birthday early so the family could participate, visited Canada, looked for missile silos (interesting stuff), visited the North Dakota State Fair, and visited, shopped, and played together. We thank Nikki and Dan and their family to sharing their home with us. We certainly enjoyed our visit and sad to have to part again. We miss them all. Those evenings playing "Catch Phrase" was a lot of fun.

On our trip home, we did a photography shoot of the countryside, and visited Yellowstone NP. It was a beautiful place to visit. We finally made it home and are glad we did.

Gas prices were high but not as high as I thought they would be, lowest was $3.88 in Wyoming, highest in South Dakota at $4.25 and the average was at $4.099. We did our best to find the cheapest places off the main roads. We're glad to make it home, everything was alright, and we need some rest now.

I'll post more pictures of the trip later.