A voyage across the Midwest

Well, we finally made it to Colorado Springs. We got in Sunday evening, and we're looking for housing.

Our trip out here was great! We started our trip in Okoboji - a few days of boating and hanging out, then to Cherokee to get things sorted out, then we were off - out of Iowa on Monday afternoon. Our first stop was Mitchell, SD - home of the Corn Palace. This place is exactly what it sounds like - it is a building covered in corn. They take different colors of corn grown in SD, cut the ears in half lengthwise then staple it to the wall in a pattern. It's really cool.


Then we went to the exciting state capitol! Pierre is probably the size of Ames..but the building was very pretty. We stopped by the Oahe dam and the hydroelectric generating building place, but unfortunately we missed the tour because they left early. Here is a picture of the Oahe reservoir.

And, the first cactus that we found (Bob came really close to sitting on it).

After Pierre, we rolled into the Badlands. We stayed for two days. It was sooo beautiful, and it was the middle of the week so it wasn't crowded at all. We saw bighorn sheep, prairie dogs (they were sooooooo cute - I took a million pictures of them), some cute weird-looking chipmunks, a bison, a rabbit, a coyote, and a bunch of birds - including a mountain bluebird. The whole area is amazing with short-grass prairies and huge rock formations that are red, green, yellow and grey. We took about 250 pictures in the park - here are some of my favorites.

After the Badlands we headed for the Rapid City and the Black Hills. We saw Mt. Rushmore (from the road, it was $8 to park..and I'm not that patriotic), tons of big boulders (all the rocks were shiny and sparkley), a bison, some bighorn sheep in town, and some scary, scary mountain roads (I'm so glad I wasn't driving!). We also stopped at Jewel Cave, the second longest cave system in the world. It had lots of crystals in it and some cool formations, but a lot of the formations looked like someone had spilled a lot of wax and it cooled there. It was pretty neat, and it was 49 degrees, so I was glad I'd brought a jacket.

Then, on to Wyoming. Wyoming has approximately ten towns in the whole state, and none of them are big. We saw a highway marker for a town named Lost Spring; the elevation was 4996 and the population was 1 (no joke). On highway 85 (I think), we went for 81 miles without seeing a town, no bathrooms, nothing but cows and grass. However, we saw a new animal - pronghorn antelope! They would stand in pastures with the cows, and they all had babies with them, they were so cute! We stopped in Cheyenne for a little while then headed down to Colorado Springs.

Now the real adventures begin - on my to do list : 1) find housing 2) find a job. I'll let you all know how it goes!

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

Bob gave me my birthday present early, and it is....*drum roll* a 'new' laptop!! He fixed up an old laptop so it's good as new! It's fabulous!!

Right now, we're sitting in the MU because it's the only place in Ames with WiFi that's still open.

Hooray for my new computer!!!

Hello faithful blog readers (all three of you), I am still alive!

I moved out of my apartment early this week, and now I no longer have a residence. I'm crashing at one of Bob's friends in the scary basement. Oh well, can't complain, it's a roof over my head.

Last weekend, Bob and I took a trip down to Kansas City to see some old friends and Bob's great-uncle Les. We went to Westport (I think that's what it's called) on Saturday night. In the span of three hours we saw three people get arrested and two people puke. It was a charming evening. The next day, we saw Jenna and Bob's great uncle Les.

Les was a great old man. Within 30 seconds of meeting him I got a hug, and he proclaimed proudly '5'10", 130 - am I right?' - then we had to call his daughter, Anita in Texas to tell her my measurements - apparently there had been quite a wager going. It was great. We saw all of his inventions and creations over the years, and then had dinner at Applebees. He made apple crisp for dessert. Yum!

It was fun to hear his stories about the war and about his days of typing out morse code. He still gets on his radio (yep, he's the one that got Bob into Ham) and types out morse to his buddies, and it must really work for keeping a guy sharp because he's probably close to 90, but you'd never know from talking to him.

One thing that struck me is the generation gap. I'm used to having people ask about my college education and my career outlook, but not great uncle Les. He asked Bob all about education and jobs but not me. I got asked about my ability to cook, sew, knit and crochet. Bob got to read articles about the war and figure out puzzles, and I got shown the knitting machine, quilts and African violets. It's amazing how different things are after just a generation or two.

Well, I'm off to the library to find a story to tell for my last program at Ledges on Saturday. Wish me luck!