November/December 2010

Well, it is now  almost the end of December and I haven’t written for some time.  Too busy, I guess.  Anyway, we have had our DR appointments – Judy had another pet scan and the results showed that the spot on her lungs has decreased!  So that is great news.  She will have another scan in February.

We travelled with Ken and Julie, Gehrig and Emma to Nashville for Thanksgiving with Belinda, Bryan, and Bailey.  We ate all the usual good food and did some sightseeing as well.  We went to ICE! At the Gaylord Operaland which was unique. 

They have specially constructed rooms of crafted ice sculptures that take you on a journey through the Christmas story, Santa Claus is Coming to Town. 

 It is definitely a chilly adventure – a constant 9 degrees!  You are given long heavy parkas with hoods to wear thru it, and, believe me, we needed them. 

Very cool looking if I must say so myself!!

One particular interactive section included an ice slide that most of us tried out. 

Back at the house, cookies were made:

And they waited (patiently) for them to be done.

We also went to the Nashville Zoo and got to see a lot of the zoo even though it was quite cool.

Belinda, Julie and Judy spent Thanksgiving morning planning their Black Friday escapade (which actually started on the eve of Black Friday and went all night.  They came home around 7 AM and Judy stayed home while the girls went back out for MORE shopping.  Not anything I would want to do, but they had some things they wanted and that was the way they had to do it.

We have also gone to Massachusetts to visit Larry, Jacky, and Hannah.  We left TX on 12/15 and came back on the 20^th.  We celebrated Hannah’s 12^th birthday by going bowling and also had an early Christmas with them.

We got to watch Larry make muffins at the restaurant (which he or Jacky do almost every day) - 9 different flavors:

And Jacky makes salads daily as well - here are two of them:

Larry and Hannah made Christmas cookies before we left.

Now that we are back in TX, we are planning our trip south to the RGV (Rio Grande Valley for all you non-RVers) in January.  We plan to leave around the 5^th of January.  We’ll update you on that after we get back.

The Three Day for the Cure

As most of you know, the Three Day for the Cure (60 mile walk) was held this past weekend in Dallas.  Over 2,700 people participated.  A friend of ours, Kim Mayfield, decided that she would walk it for Judy and our friend, Barb Klier.  She started training last summer, gave up smoking, overcame a few obstacles along the way, but was there at race time on Friday morning.

Here is Kim on the left with a friend and fellow walker, Megan. 

Melanie Fischer of First Choice Children's Homecare (where Judy worked for the past 18 years) also walked for Judy and three other gals.

First Choice had made a banner for the walk:

Three days later (Sunday afternoon) the walk ended at the Cotton Bowl on the TX State Fairgrounds. It was announced that they raised over $7 million.
That evening,the ladies of our church and the Stephen Ministers put on a dinner for Kim and her friends who walked.  It was an amazing accomplishment and we applaud them for their efforts. 

Minnesota and the Birthdays

Monday, the 18th, we left for Minneapolis (actually we went to Mystic Lake and Dakota Meadows Campground in Prior Lake, MN.  We got in around 3 PM, got setup and then drove into Pam and Steve's.  On the way Steve called to tell us that Pam was asleep on the couch and we should sneak in, sit down, and wait for her to get up.  Which we did.  She woke up, saw my plaid shirt, and jumped up because she knew Steve didnt have a shirt like that!!  It was great!

We spent two weeks there and had a great time, as always!  Pam's birthday (60th) party was on Friday the 22nd at a bowling alley.  She was unaware of the party so it was great to see the surprised look on her face when she came in. 

Steve's brother, Jim, and his wife, Meg, had come in on Thursday to surprise her, and, Matt came from Indianapolis on Friday morning as well.  Those Pivecs throw a great party.  Thanks, Molly, Stephanie, and Steve!!

The weather started turning colder while we were there.  The CG decided to turn off the water about 5 days earlier than planned due to the freezing weather that was expected so we had to fill our fresh water tank.  We also had some very strong winds for a couple of days (25 -30 MPH and gusts of 40).  The trailer was rocking a few times!!

We had planned to leave on 10/29 and a couple of days earlier we had to scrape our windows so we knew it was time.  We did drive to Pipestone on Saturday morning to be at my aunt Nora's 100th birthday party that afternoon.  The party was great and we got to see alot of the relatives.

This next picture is of Nora with her two brothers (Harold on the left and Hank on the right).

We stayed at the new motel in Pipestone (Crossings Inn) and it was very nice.  Some of us got together at the party room in the motel that evening, ordered pizza, and had a nice time.

We left early Sunday morning, drove 400 miles to Platte City, MO.  On Monday we drove 300 miles to Chetokah, OK (Carrie Underwood's home town - she wasn't there) for the night.  And on Tuesday we drove the last 200 miles (in rain) to Melissa, Tx.  It was so nice to get back home, and see Julie, Ken, and Gehrig and Emma (and Kelsi over the weekend).

We are now enjoying staying put for awhile, but do have plans to go to Nashville with Ken and Julie and the kids for Thanksgiving to be with Belinda, Bryan, and Bailey, and then Judy and I will make our annual trip to MA in December to see Larry, Jacky, and Hannah.  And then, who knows what the new year will bring???

The Badlands of South Dakota and Sioux Falls

Here I am - finally updating this blog on November 13th.  I ran out of space for pictures and couldn't decide if I wanted to purchase more space.  Anyway, I just did it finally so here is the next blog.



It is now Thursday, Oct. 14th and we are leaving Custer for Sioux Falls, via WALL DRUG (of course) and The Badlands.

If you've never been to Wall Drug, it is a quaint little town with numerous (tooo many) shops, but they do offer 5 cent coffee and some great cake donuts with frosting on top!!

It wasn't very busy at all this time of year so we got in and got out in less than two hours.

We then took the road south out of Wall Drug to The Badlands.  It is a Federal Park so we got in for FREE.

This is another amazing part of the great USA.  There is nothing like it elsewhere.

The drive takes about an hour, but, with stops along the way, it took us a couple of hours.  At one point we stopped at a turnout to walk on the boardwalk that they have set up to get a close up of the land and see some prehistoric skeletons, etc.

Anyway, about half way around the walk, we noticed that a tour bus pulled up in front of our truck and trailer.  A bunch of people got out and started their walk.  We got back to the parking area and then walked accross the road to see more of the badlands.   When we came back, ALL of the people from the tour bus were taking pictures of our truck, the trailer, the hitch, everything!!  We started to get into the truck and the tour guide said that these people were all from Germany and were on a tour.  You would have thought that we were part of the tour!!  I told her that this was our home and that we had been on the road for 2 years.  She relayed that to the group and they were all 'ooong' and 'aahing.' 
I think we could have opened up the slides and given our own tour!!!  (That was our 15 minutes of fame!).
From there we continued our drive and took MORE pictures.

After we left the Badlands, we headed east toward Sioux Falls.  About half way we spent the night in Presho, SD and then continued the next day.
We got to Sioux Falls on Friday and spent the weekend with my sister, Judeen, and her husband, Jim.  Jim was in the hospital at the time so we saw him there. (Since then he has gone home and is recuperating nicely).  Their daughter, Katie, came up from Sioux City on Saturday so we went out to dinner with them.  On Sunday we visited Jim again, watched some Viking football, and then said our goodbyes.

Custer State Park & Crazy Horse

The next day we drove to Custer State Park to see the animals.  We didn't even get to the park before we had to stop and take a quick picture of this one.

Old time settler area in the park.

Once in the Park, we traveled on mountainous roads and then came to this huge group of buffalo.  We parked right next to them and watched them (eat, what else??).

I think they were headed for greener pastures.  Must have been a couple hundred of them.

And, after we passed them, a look back,

More scenery along the way.

And then we came up on these guys (and gals).

We also saw deer:

And, a rather uncommon sign:

Once out of the mountainous area, we traveled along a road with many beautiful sights of the landscape.

This road thru the Park is like a circle - it comes back out the the main road to Custer.  So, guess what?? It was lunch time again and we were going by the $2 lunch place again!!  This time we actually ate in the truck as it was colder and windier today.

After lunch (!!), we drove thru Custer and then back up the road to Crazy Horse.  Here again, this is an amazing feat, and, it's still being worked on.

No federal money is involved with this - it is from private donations only. 

I wish I still had pictures from when we were here in 1998 to see what differences there are.  They have a long way to go and I know we won't see the finished project in our lifetime.  Maybe the grandkids will.

The weather, although still nice during the day, has gotten colder.  The last two mornings it was been in the low to mid 20's. 
Time to head east for Sioux Falls....