Troubles......

My favorite laptop is down - it has all of my photos on it that go with my intended posts of the rest of our trip across the country.  At this time I can only give a synopsis and then ~ if time and interest allows ~ I can go back and re-post.

We went to Yellowstone National Park and stayed at Three Bears Lodge in West Yellowstone.  The package we had included a wonderful, scrumptious dinner for 2 (I had the prime rib, Keith had shrimp), full menu breakfast for both mornings of our 2 night stay, and a great tour of the "Lower Loop" which was an all-day tour with a huge lunch at Old Faithful.  I wish I had the photos!  It is amazing what God has done with this Earth!!  I don't know why us Americans go abroad (us too!) and spend our money when we have so many unique things to see right here!!!  The geysers were amazing!  We got up close and almost to personal with elk and bison (right on the side of the road!!) and the views from Yellowstone's own "Grand Canyon" and falls are awesome!!  All of this was included in the tour as well as the history of the park, fires, wildlife management techniques~  Our guide was great!!

After Yellowstone we headed westward again towards Pendleton, Oregon to meet up with my sister, Sharen, and to go see our brother.  We (pretty much I) loved the scenery on our drive thru Montana, N. Dakota, and Idaho.  The views at the 'viewpoints' are amazing.  During part of our 'Montana drive' the skies were rather overcast and you could see all the layers of the huge,huge clouds.  And at times, we were so high in the mountains it seemed like I could reach up and touch them!!  Our small time in Idaho was all mountains and huge green trees.  It was like crossing into a different country when we crossed over into Eastern Washington.  It was hot, dry, and way, way barren.  After all the huge green trees and animal sightings of the last several states, it looked like we'd crossed into desert - which in reality, we had.  High Desert in fact!

So that pretty much takes care of a little update to get closer to where we are today.