Hi All
We are home - having mixed feelings. I loved traveling around the country, but it feels nice to be home.
While we were traveling today I realized that today July 12, 2011 marks the one year anniversary of Ellie being diagnosed with Leukemia.
This is a day to be thankful for: Paul and I still have our beautiful daughter.
What a road we have traveled, we could not have made it this far in this cancer journey without all the prayers and support we have received from our family, friends, doctors, nurses and even strangers.
We have been tested as a family this past year and have become closer having realized what is important in life. What use to stress us out is not even a minor speed bump in the road anymore. Life is fuller and a lot less petty. I wish everyone could have the liberating mind set that I have from things in life that just don't matter in the big picture.
My hope, wish and prayer is that our family never forgets these lessons as time goes on.
I would like to thank each and every one of you for the support you have shown us during this past year, each of your words of encouragement came at times when they were needed more then you could know.
Ellie still has a lot of treatment a head of her, but she will get through it with the continued grace and dignity she has shown during the past year.
Now that Ellie has done her make a wish trip ( which was so awesome) she is now looking forward to her next adventure: Camp Ta Kum Ta. She is so excited to be going. I can't wait to hear the stories she will come home with.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
St. Louis
Hi All
We have stopped tonight at a great KOA campground in Erie PA. It didn't take long for Ellie to jump in the pool, oh how she has missed swimming. Not many places we have stayed have had pools. Poor girl ours isn't even open for her to swim in when we get home.
We are not sure what we are doing tomorrow, Ellie and I would just as well stay her for another day, but we will see.
I was going to add more then this picture to the post but the wi-fi that we have in the campground is oohh sooo very slow. I will post them on FB.
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We have stopped tonight at a great KOA campground in Erie PA. It didn't take long for Ellie to jump in the pool, oh how she has missed swimming. Not many places we have stayed have had pools. Poor girl ours isn't even open for her to swim in when we get home.
We are not sure what we are doing tomorrow, Ellie and I would just as well stay her for another day, but we will see.
I was going to add more then this picture to the post but the wi-fi that we have in the campground is oohh sooo very slow. I will post them on FB.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Headed Home
Hello All
We left the Grand Canyon on July 9th and are heading home. We stayed at a hotel last night there were no campgrounds around when we were ready to stop, had to smuggle cubby up to the room. Thanks goodness he is a quiet dog. Tonights motel ( again no campgrounds around when you need one) allow pets.
We stopped at the Arch in St. Louis tonight. We took the tram to the top, Ellie had never been up in the Arch, I spent most of my summers here and went up in it as a kid and Paul and I had been up in it back in "93" on one of our visits here to see my relatives. It has changed alot, there is now a museum and interactive things for kids to play with while you wait in line to take this very small tram to the top. Once at the top you can actually feel the Arch itself swaying back and forth.
I do have pictures but have not down loaded them yet. These will come later.
We will get home probably Wednesday night. I had called Connie at Mekkelsen's were we got the RV from to see if we could keep it longer, turns out that it had to be back sooner then we thought. So we are headed staight for home, should take us two days from here.
I will update this blog and add pictures to it when we get home.
Good night all
We left the Grand Canyon on July 9th and are heading home. We stayed at a hotel last night there were no campgrounds around when we were ready to stop, had to smuggle cubby up to the room. Thanks goodness he is a quiet dog. Tonights motel ( again no campgrounds around when you need one) allow pets.
We stopped at the Arch in St. Louis tonight. We took the tram to the top, Ellie had never been up in the Arch, I spent most of my summers here and went up in it as a kid and Paul and I had been up in it back in "93" on one of our visits here to see my relatives. It has changed alot, there is now a museum and interactive things for kids to play with while you wait in line to take this very small tram to the top. Once at the top you can actually feel the Arch itself swaying back and forth.
I do have pictures but have not down loaded them yet. These will come later.
We will get home probably Wednesday night. I had called Connie at Mekkelsen's were we got the RV from to see if we could keep it longer, turns out that it had to be back sooner then we thought. So we are headed staight for home, should take us two days from here.
I will update this blog and add pictures to it when we get home.
Good night all
Yellowstone to Grand Canyon
We left Yellowstone on July 5th, it took us two long days ( one night) to get to the Grand Canyon. The roads were very long, winding and up and down. I'm glad Paul was driving. We went out of Yellowstone through the south entrance so we could see the Grand Teton Peaks, beautiful, very beautiful. These peaks still has snow on them too. Utah mountains also had lots of snow on them.
Arizona was a lot warmer, the days got up into the high 80's but it was much warmer then Yellowstone. We had a couple of thunderstorms in the late afternoon early evenings, got some good videos on the rim of one of the storms.
Thursday July 7th we went on a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon, this was very cool. Ellie had never flown so she was very excited about this adventure. She did not want to come down, I can see her wanting to learn how to fly one. We also went to a bird show that had huge condors, cranes, falcons and ravens. Where the bird show is there were also an Imax movie on the Grand Canyon, very cool.
We took a shuttle bus to different parts of the rim, at each stop you can get out and hike along the rim alittle or a lot. During one of the stops, at Yavapai Geology Museum there was a storm coming in across the canyon, it was such a site. I got some pretty cool videos of the storm and lighting. These storms tend to come in fast and hard. Ellie had talked about going to the skywalk, which is a a glass ridge out over the canyon, but we found out that it is actually 250 miles away from the canyon on an indian reservation, you have to book a seperate tour to go out on it, so we weren't able to do this, maybe next time.
Back on Line
Hi All
Finally we have internet and cell service. We could not find a campground on I 70 in Illinois, so we are in a super 8. Whats up with the National Parks and not having any electronic connections. It seems like so long ago I was able to connect with anyone.
I am going to catch the blog up in sections as we did things.
The last time I wrote we were leaving Mount Rushmore on Sat the 2nd of July, it was only a day drive to Yellowstone so we got there later that day. Wait til you see the pictures from there, snow everywhere driving in. The mountains were so beautiful with all the snow on them, until we got up close and personal with the snow. We had snow in our campground. Ellie said she couldn't believe we drove all this way to see snow, I couldn't believe she wouldn't even make a snowball. The days were really nice 80's but the nights went down to 35, burrrrrr. there was alot of flooding in Yellowstone, Lake Yellowstone was way over it's banks, as well as the rivers and streams. There were some roads that were closed. Yellowstone had just opened the week prior to us arriving, they had 117 feet of snow this year. Wow I thought we had a lot.
Sunday we went horse back riding, yes all three of us. Ellie of course was a natural, Paul and I on the other hand didn't. Ellie was thrilled out on the trail, she didn't want to come back. There was one part of the trail that we went on, it went right along the edge of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, very close, I was pretty nervous, not Ellie she loved it. As we were going out on the trail there were lots of Elk up behind the barn, very pretty animals. We drove around to a couple of hot springs after horseback riding, at one of them there were two Bison standing right were everyone had to walk, of course we all were getting pictures. Ellie was so close she could have reached out and touched it, but didn't.
On Monday the 4th of July we took an 8 hour bus tour, we figured it would be nice for Paul to actually be able to look at the landscape instead of just the road. The tour went all around the upper portion of Yellowstone. We went to Old Faithful and saw it errupt twice. Very cool. We also went inside the Old Faithful in this is cool, it has staircases on each side of the lobby which you can climb up to the landing.
During the tour we saw lots of wild life, Bison, elk, otters, deer.
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Finally we have internet and cell service. We could not find a campground on I 70 in Illinois, so we are in a super 8. Whats up with the National Parks and not having any electronic connections. It seems like so long ago I was able to connect with anyone.
I am going to catch the blog up in sections as we did things.
The last time I wrote we were leaving Mount Rushmore on Sat the 2nd of July, it was only a day drive to Yellowstone so we got there later that day. Wait til you see the pictures from there, snow everywhere driving in. The mountains were so beautiful with all the snow on them, until we got up close and personal with the snow. We had snow in our campground. Ellie said she couldn't believe we drove all this way to see snow, I couldn't believe she wouldn't even make a snowball. The days were really nice 80's but the nights went down to 35, burrrrrr. there was alot of flooding in Yellowstone, Lake Yellowstone was way over it's banks, as well as the rivers and streams. There were some roads that were closed. Yellowstone had just opened the week prior to us arriving, they had 117 feet of snow this year. Wow I thought we had a lot.
Sunday we went horse back riding, yes all three of us. Ellie of course was a natural, Paul and I on the other hand didn't. Ellie was thrilled out on the trail, she didn't want to come back. There was one part of the trail that we went on, it went right along the edge of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, very close, I was pretty nervous, not Ellie she loved it. As we were going out on the trail there were lots of Elk up behind the barn, very pretty animals. We drove around to a couple of hot springs after horseback riding, at one of them there were two Bison standing right were everyone had to walk, of course we all were getting pictures. Ellie was so close she could have reached out and touched it, but didn't.
On Monday the 4th of July we took an 8 hour bus tour, we figured it would be nice for Paul to actually be able to look at the landscape instead of just the road. The tour went all around the upper portion of Yellowstone. We went to Old Faithful and saw it errupt twice. Very cool. We also went inside the Old Faithful in this is cool, it has staircases on each side of the lobby which you can climb up to the landing.
During the tour we saw lots of wild life, Bison, elk, otters, deer.
Friday, July 1, 2011
MT Rushmore, Gold Mine, Reptile Garden, Wax Museum
Hello All
It is our last night in Keystone. We are sad to leave yet excited for our next adventure: Yellowstone here we come.
Today we started out at Mount Rushmore. Another amazing site, even in the rain. Unfortunately we never made it back tonight for the lighting ceremony, this is where they light up the heads for a little while each night. I am just in awe of these carvings that were done so many years ago. They are a beautiful site.
Next we ventured into a gold mine to see how those work. The mine we went into they say it was a working mine back in it's day, but the two men who owned it only pulled $200.00 in gold out of it during the 35 years they worked it. They had as much luck as Ellie did panning. She found a few flakes, now they sit in a little vial like a million dollar prize. She will cherish it forever.
We also went to a Reptile Garden, just let me say I really had no interest in going her, but Ellie really wanted to. I will say it was alot different then I had expected. This place had more frogs, turtles, snakes, lizards of all varieties, alligators, spiders just to mention a few. One of the alligators weighed over 1000 pounds. There were also pythons that were 23 feet long. We saw shows with birds, alligators, and snakes. There were also prairie dogs and tortoises that had to have weighed 500lbs. One of the coolest things was the skelton of the largest sea turtle found in South Dakota, it lived when the dinosaurs lived, it was hugh. I will try to post pictures here, if they don't post look at them on facebook.
The last thing today was the Wax Museum of all the presidents. This was ok, some of the presidents really looked real, others were too shiney. Ellie had a history lesson and didn't even know it too funny.
Tomorrow we pull out, we have around 500 miles to drive to Yellowstone.
We are hoping to stop at Devils Tower on the way, we shall see.
Good night to you all
It is our last night in Keystone. We are sad to leave yet excited for our next adventure: Yellowstone here we come.
Today we started out at Mount Rushmore. Another amazing site, even in the rain. Unfortunately we never made it back tonight for the lighting ceremony, this is where they light up the heads for a little while each night. I am just in awe of these carvings that were done so many years ago. They are a beautiful site.
Next we ventured into a gold mine to see how those work. The mine we went into they say it was a working mine back in it's day, but the two men who owned it only pulled $200.00 in gold out of it during the 35 years they worked it. They had as much luck as Ellie did panning. She found a few flakes, now they sit in a little vial like a million dollar prize. She will cherish it forever.
We also went to a Reptile Garden, just let me say I really had no interest in going her, but Ellie really wanted to. I will say it was alot different then I had expected. This place had more frogs, turtles, snakes, lizards of all varieties, alligators, spiders just to mention a few. One of the alligators weighed over 1000 pounds. There were also pythons that were 23 feet long. We saw shows with birds, alligators, and snakes. There were also prairie dogs and tortoises that had to have weighed 500lbs. One of the coolest things was the skelton of the largest sea turtle found in South Dakota, it lived when the dinosaurs lived, it was hugh. I will try to post pictures here, if they don't post look at them on facebook.
The last thing today was the Wax Museum of all the presidents. This was ok, some of the presidents really looked real, others were too shiney. Ellie had a history lesson and didn't even know it too funny.
Tomorrow we pull out, we have around 500 miles to drive to Yellowstone.
We are hoping to stop at Devils Tower on the way, we shall see.
Good night to you all
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