North to (Minnesota!!)

Sorry about the delay in getting the blog started, but you need internet access and we have not had it.  Still don’t as a matter of fact, but I am updating in Word and will copy over to the blog when I can.

Before we left Plano, we attended Gehrig’s graduation from Belmont on 5/4 and then Emma’s on 5/25.  Here are the two of them.

We left Plano on 5/28 and drove to a casino just West of Joplin (Downstream Casino) for the night.  If you register, you can get a night free!  We spent all of $5 in the casino so we feel like we made out!

The next day we found a campground just north of St. Joe, MO.  Before we got there my sister, Judeen, called to say that I-29 was closed again from the MO. Border all the way to Council Bluffs, IA.  So we followed the detours and did make it to our CG a couple of hours later than planned.  That pesky Missouri River likes to play havoc here.  Very nice state park here (Two Rivers Recreation Area) but no dump station at your site.  They had been closed in May as well due to the flooding of the Elkhorn River which is West of Omaha.

My sister, Judeen and her husband, Jim, live in the small town of Waterloo, NE, and they came very close to being flooded out.  In fact, Waterloo was basically an island for about 3 days in early May, per this picture.

The blue dot is about where they live.

They had had an enormous amount of snow which melted in couple of days due to the warm temperatures and then two days of hard rain.

Anyway, we had a great time here.  I think we went out to dinner every night except Saturday night when we had Judeen and Jim, and their daughters and husbands  (Alison and Eric, and Katie (Tim could not make it) and granddaughter, Aliza out to the CG for a cookout.  Had a real nice time and good food.  Aliza loved to play with water and dirt, eventually mud!!

She had a good time playing Sorry with Judy and Auntie Allison.

What's a cookout without S'mores??

On Sunday we found a small Lutheran Church in Yutan, NE about 5 miles from our CG.  Afterwards, we had coffee and snacks with several members there.

On Monday we had planned to go to the zoo but it rained a lot over night and the next morning so we went to a place called Sheels which is a huge two-story store with sporting goods, outdoor activities, etc. 

Even a ferris wheel:

 Judeen and Katie and Aliza met us there.  Katie and Aliza rode the ferris wheel.

  There is also an area where the kids can play with Legos and Aliza loves that so we spent some time there watching her and the other kids.

Monday night we met Katie, Tim, and Aliza at a great restaurant/pub for dinner and drinks.  Great wings and pizza, fried pickles and onions, and cauliflower!

Tuesday Judeen, Jim, Aliza, Judy and I went out to lunch at Aliza's favorite place:

And, from there, drove a few miles to this:  Because I was a Veteran, we got in for a special price.

We drove thru but could get out to see some of the animals.  They had 4 or 5 eagles in captivity that could not be let go free due to various issues.  Beautiful, large birds.

There were elk and deer.

And many other birds. 

Aliza's favorite pastime was "cawing" to the birds.

A large herd of bison.  We only took a closeup of one to show the shedding of their coats.  It was interesting to watch them lay down and roll to try to get rid of the fur.

We saw and petted goats and tried to catch chickens!

They also had this town:

They would stand and stare at you as you stared back at them!

Interesting facts about how they live underground and who lives under there with them.  If you click on the picture, I think it will enlarge.

Wednesday afternoon we toured a couple of gift shops in Elkton and then went out to dinner at a place called Boyd and Charlies.  A good BBQ menu.

We had planned on taking this route out of Omaha to get onto I-29 to go north but it wasn't to be.

Instead we had to take another route North.

Thursday morning we packed up and left for Paullina, IA. in northern Iowa for a family reunion on Sunday.  We drove thru LeMars, IA that says it is the "Ice Cream Capital of the World."   Ice cream cones were on a lot of the downtown streets.  Judy got this one since it reflects "Girl Scouts."

We found our campground on the East side of Paullina and are camped here until Monday when we head north to Lake Benton, MN.