10/9/2013 8:30PM

End of day 31  Trip odometer  8722.0 miles

First, some pictures that we were enable to post from St. Louis:

The exterior of the Cathedral Basilica St. Louis

The nave of the Cathedral Basilica

View of main altar from the back

 

 Exterior view of the City Museum, St. Louis

 



 External view of the City Museum, St. Louis

The Arch of St. Louis from the Illinois side of the Mississippi

 

 

As we told you last night, we spend the night in Terra Haute, IN.  From there this morning, we headed to home.

Had lunch in Defiance, OH (remember that area, Mimi and Rick?)

We arrived back in Ypsilanti, Michigan around 4PM, just in time to join our neighborhood Wednesday Happy Hour for a great visit.

We are glad to be home.  Thanks for traveling with us, and for all of you that offered us lodging along the way.  We hope you enjoyed our travels as much as we did.

Next year? - maybe we will head south and then up the east coast.  There is so much left to see!

 



10/8/2013 8PM

End of day 30   Trip odometer  8387 miles

We started our day driving to St. Louis.  The first place we stopped was at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.  The cathedral is decorated with all marble and mosaic, no paint.  It was very beautiful with different areas depicting the history of the Catholic Church and of St. Louis.  I am having trouble downloading pictures, so I will have to post them later.
We also planned to tour the City Museum in St. Louis, but it wasn't opened today.  So we drove through the St. Louis University campus and had some lunch near there.  (Sorry, Tom, but where we stopped had no Toasted Ravioli to compare to that we had at Jillian's Saturday night.)   Jim also got some beautiful pictures of the St. Louis Arch from the Illinois side of the Mississippi, but I can't post them tonight.
We are spending tonight in Terra Haute, Indiana and had a great dinner at a Texas Steakhouse nearby.



10/7/2013 9 PM

End of day 29  Trip odometer 8130 miles

Hello, again.  We have some catching up to do.

Saturday, October 5 we left Boise City, OK. and headed into Kansas.  We took a drive though Dodge City which still has one street that looks like the old West.
We arrived at my brother and sister-in-law's in the mid-afternoon.  We had never visited their home in Hutchinson, Kansas before.  Tom and Lois gave us a tour of  'Hutch' as they took me to the market to pick up the saltine seasonings I have promised many of you.  After evening Mass, we enjoyed a great dinner with them at Jillian's Italian Grille.

Sunday, October 6, Tom and Jim played golf in the morning.  Lois and I had a relaxing morning crafting, IPading, taking a walk in the neighborhood, etc.  It was great just to spend relaxing time with Lois.  It was their daughter, Courtney's, birthday, so Courtney and her family (husband, Brian, and children, Nate, Sean, Caeli and Anthony) joined us for a celebratory dinner.  It was so great to catch up with family we don't see very often.



 

 

Today, Monday, we ended our all-too-short visit in Hutchinson and headed across Kansas and in to Missouri.  Tonight we are staying in Sullivan, MO and plan to tour St. Louis tomorrow.  Our plans to ride to the top of the Arch are canceled since it is under the National Parks System and is closed due to the government shutdown :-(    But Lois and Courtney have given us ideas for other places to visit in St. Louis.





10/4/2013 7:30PM

End of day 26   Trip odometer 7387 miles

Our drive from Santa Fe, NM took us past vast ranches and definitely out of the mountains.

 

 

We stopped for lunch in the northeast corner of New Mexico in the town of Clayton.  The dining room in the historic Hotel Eklund had been renovated in 1975 using many features from its original 1892 construction.  The hotel had been an elaborate railroad hotel between Denver and Fort Worth.  It still operates as a restaurant, saloon and hotel with all the latest updates, including an elevator, Jacuzzi tubs and Wi-Fi.

Tonight we are staying in a comfortable motel room in the small town of Boise City, OK.

A couple of weeks ago we were driving through Rapid City, SD.  We heard today that they had a foot of snow there last night.  Glad we missed that!

We will be driving to Tom and Lo's in Hutchinson, KS tomorrow.  We may not have time to post on this blog again until Monday.  Have a great weekend.



10/3/2013 5:30PM

End of day 25   Trip odometer  7130 miles

The drive from Durango, CO into northern New Mexico was beautiful.  The fall colors are out in full in the higher elevations.

 

 

We had a great lunch at Martyr's Steakhouse in Taos, NM.  The sun was shining and we were able to ride with the top down from there to Santa Fe, where we are spending the night.  Still trying to decide where to have dinner.



10/2/2013 8:30PM

End of day 24   Trip odometer 6825 miles

With the government shutdown, all the National Parks we wanted to tour were closed today.  So we decided to stay in Durango an extra night.  We enjoyed walking around this neat old down - eating, oil change for the Vette, shopping, manicure, eating again.  I even worked in a nap this afternoon.  Tomorrow, off to New Mexico.

 

Views of the southwest Colorado countryside.



10/2/2013 7:15AM

Beginning of day 24  Trip odometer       miles

First of all, we are so happy to welcome Lennon Kate Van Hise to the family.  Congratulations to Katie and Dan!

We left Cameron, AZ yesterday morning heading to the southeast corner of Utah.  The pictures below are from Monument Valley.

At Four Corners, where Arizona, Utah, Colorado

and New Mexico meet

 

 

After these amazing sites, we continued into Colorado where we spent the night in Durango.  We wanted to take the

narrow gauge train to Silverton, but there were no available reservations for today.  So we will drive ourselves through the sites nearby.