Across the prairie to Saskatoon

Today we drove all day across the prairie - looks so much like Nebraska or Oklahoma. We are staying the night in Saskatoon, but headed toward Winnepeg tomorrow. It may take us a day and one-half to reach Winnepeg unless we drive into the night.. We'll see. We plan to stay the weekend in Winnepeg - watch the BSU game on DirecTV. We were told our DirectV wouldn't work in Canada but it sure does. There still was hectares and hectares of unharvested grain crop. The ground is extremely wet so they are weeks from harvest - again may not make it. I'm thinking I should go buy futures in wheat!

Calgary

You might wonder why we went through Montana. Lady or Mrs. "G" as we call her (our Garmen) sent us that way so we went through Great Falls. Yesterday we drove to Calgary and we are camped about 2 miles north of the 1988 Olympic luge/sled area (picture R). It has been very cold all summer in Calgary (the people talk about never seeing the sun). On the way here we saw lots of unharvested, green wheat that likely won't make it. They've had snow already in Calgary and the Rocky Mtns. in view from here are covered with snow. Today we went to the 1988 Olympic village where they did the bobsled and luge runs as well as the ski jumping. The ski jumping towers (picture L)were unbelievably high and to think they are higher now - that is one thing NOT on my bucket list. We also drove down to the Calgary Stampede park, where there is a huge rodeo grounds (always a July rodeo) and the ice skating center for the Calgary Flames. We were a little dismayed that the grandstands for the rodeo are actually quite a few meters from the actual rodeo arena for most of the seats. Calgary also has a space needle with restaurant, very similar to the one in Seattle. Tomorrow morning we are heading easterly.

Heading toward Canada

Today we drove from McCall ID to Great Falls Montana. Tomorrow we will cross the border between Montana and Canada and head to Calgary. It was a pretty uneventful drive but beautiful. When we went to set up, we had to reteach outselves how to level the RV, get the slides to go out, etc. Our on-board computer seemed to need nudging as it didn't work for a while. Guess sleeping in the RV shed from early June til end of September, it needed a few tries to wake up. Pray for us as we cross the border - don't really want any big hassles. We will be driving east across Canada and drop down into Massachusetts. Need to be in Charlotte NC by about October 13

Wyoming

We are getting closer to home = we are in Laramie Wyoming. Feels and even looks like homeland with mountains and open spaces. I cannot call something only 3000 feet high a mtn. like they do in the east. They have no clue. After a while I also get that closed up feeling with all the greenery and folage. You drive down the road and cannot see more than 5 feet in from the road. I do like being able to see for miles. It will be good to be home again in 1-2 days.

Nashville and Beyond

Rachael flew in late last Wed night. We went downtown and had dinner at midnight. Thursday we wandered around downtown and went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. We spent about 3 hours going through all of the exhibits. That evening we went to the Rhyman theater to a Classic Country show (not sure how much Rachael enjoyed that music). Friday we drove over to Lynchburg and that evening went to the Grand Ole Opry (which was held at the Rhyman due to flooding at the "new" Opry house). Saturday morning she flew out. Roy and I went to a Nationwide NASCAR race outside of Nashville. Sunday was the Cowboy Church. This church broadcasts, the preacher is married to Johnny Cash's younger sister, who sang. Sunday afternoon we headed out. Spent the night outside of St. Louis. Today we are in Doniphan NE about 80 miles out of Lincoln NE. We are slowly moving home.

Nashville

We arrived yesterday in Nashville. You all recall the horrible flooding they had here. Everywhere you look, people are gutting lots of first floors of buildings. We are staying in a KOA that was completely under water. The owner told us she took a boat floating over the top of their shower house early in May. Wow. This 100+ lot KOA only has about 20 spaces open and no amenities. Fortunately, we do have power, water and sewer at our spot but no shower houses, etc. Rachael arrives tonight and we hope to go downtown and check out the country western scene at "The District" as it is called.

Second Week in Charlotte

This last week in Charlotte was a rainy one. Amazing that all of the races were on time except for the dirt track race. As the saying goes, it was spring racin' in Charlotte. We also went to two driver autograph sessions and got to speak for a while to Bryan Scott (from Boise, ID, driving in the Nationwide series and currently Rookie of the Year contender). We also visited Wood Brother's shop, who sponsors Bill Elliott's car. We went down to Speed Street, a street fair during the week whose theme is NASCAR. Friday we went to the largest hamburger feed inside the Charlotte track, sponsored by Coca Cola. After doing a 1 1/2 mile walk around the track, we ate hamburgers and chicken from a 1/4 mile long grill and drank Coke Zero. What a hoot! Monday we started driving towards Nashville TN where we will spend a few days. Rachael (daughter) is flying in on Wed and we are going to two performances at the Reiman Theater and visiting the Country Hall of Fame.