From Yellowstone Into Montana

The weather has been great here.  When I woke up this morning Billy had the heater on.  It was about 50 outside.  We packed up camp and headed out for Yellowstone.

A nice older couple riding a motorcycle from CN offered to take our picture.

  I had to stop at all the waterfalls we went past.  This is Lewis Falls.

Cascade Falls

We made it to Old Faithful about 10 minutes before she blew.

Then we took a walk and saw lots of these steaming pools.  This one is called Heart Spring.

Didn't get the name of this one.

We were going downhill headed out of Yellowstone when the traffic suddenly stopped. As it inched along we were wondering if it was roadwork or an accident.

Well it wasn't either one.  It was this herd of bison hogging the road.  They even had a ranger car escort following behind them.

How cool is that?  Aren't the babies cute? I got in the back seat so I could photograph them better and that big one with the coat looked right at me. Scary.

Welcome to Montana.

This is Earthquake Lake.  Learn about it here-The Montana Traveler and here-Historic Earthquakes

These pictures don't really show how beautiful this state is. We drove to Twin Bridges on route 287 and there were mountains on both sides of us the whole way. It's a lot greener than the pictures show.

I rank Montana right up there with North Carolina in beauty.

We arrived in Twin Bridges at 7 pm MT. There was no one around the place we were staying.  We set up the camper, went to see the new church we are going to be working on & warmed up some supper. The group from Asheboro 1st Baptist that's leaving tomorrow came in from eating out to have their devotion with David & Sharon.  We joined them and actually saw a few that we know.

We may work tomorrow or go to Virginia City.

The Road to The Tetons

Enjoy the ride and the view.

      We were so close to the snow.  The Tetons Lake Jenny Jackson Lake DamTonight we are staying in a real campground with water, electric & sewer.  It's not as nice as WallyWorld but it will do. 

A Three State Day

We left Hays, KS Wednesday morning and saw more of the same scenery for awhile and then started seeing more crops- wheat and corn.  We saw lots of grain bins.

We crossed the border into Colorado and ...

this is what Colorado looks like...

until we got close to Denver and saw the Rocky Mountains with snow on the high peeks.

Colorado turned out to be a good thrifting state.  I made four purchases for a total of $7.00 in the towns of Loveland and Fort Collins.

We were in a construction area when we crossed the Wyoming border and I missed the welcome sign but then we saw this buffalo.

We stopped at the welcome center and the bunnies there were so lazy they would not even run away.

We have stopped for the night in Laramie, WY and this is our west view...

and this is our east view.  The temperature was about 75 when we arrived at 8 pm and is supposed to get down in the 50's overnight.

The Gateway Arch & Kansas Prairies

This morning we crossed the Mississippi River into St. Louis MO and made a visit to the Gateway Arch including a trip to the top.  We had a bit of a problem finding a park for the RV since the recommended streets for RV parking were flooded.  We finally found a place about a mile away and it started raining.  We waited a minute and then walked in the rain.

   East view from the top.

West view from the top.

That's the flooded street and riverwalk down there. The riverboats were closed due to the flooding.

We found two thrift stores in Columbia, MO but did not find any goodies.

My apologies to any Kansas natives out there in blogland but this has got to be the most boring state to drive through.  We are on I-70 and there is nothing to see but miles and miles of prairie or cow pastures and not even very many cows.  I mean it's beautiful but you can only appreciate so many green rolling hills.

  I told Billy that it looked like the world's largest golf course.

We did find this interesting monument at one the rest areas.  The stone on the far right reads "In Memory of the Dedicated Employees Who Lost Their Lives Serving the Kansas Department of Transportation and the State of Kansas 1995".

We also saw maybe 100 of these windmills in a 10 mile area.

Tonight we are staying at WallyWorld in Hays, KS, which is probably the first town we've gone past that even was big enough to have one since we left Kansas City 267 miles back.

Call Me Crazy

I told Billy this morning as we left the Wallyworld parking lot that I had decided something I wanted to do.  Since I found the blogging world I have become interested in "decorating on a dime" so I wanted to stop at a thrift store in every state we drove through.  He just rolled his eyes and looked at me like I was crazy.

So far it has not quite worked out. I did stop at two in TN but our journey through Kentucky was short and our journey through Illinois was after 5pm so no junking in those states.  I'll try to make it up tomorrow in Missouri.

We found some nice antique stores in Lebanon, TN (according to the brochure "the Antique City of the South"). I was so happy when we got there and the first thing I saw was "The Quilt Emporium".  Unfortunately it had been closed since December.

The antique stores were around the town square.

This was the third floor of one of them.

Neddy Jacobs Cabin in Lebanon, TN

My Goodwill purchases. Total of $3.50.

My antique store purchases.  Cherub planter and cat planter.

I let Billy stop at CamperWorld in Nashville.  We went right by Opryland, wish we had time to stop.

In Kentucky the point of interest was the Kentucky Dam and the largest lake in the SE United States.

This was a beautiful IL sunset but I almost missed the picture.

As I write this Billy is being entertained by spotting all the deer in the fields in Illinois.

We are staying tonight in the WallyWorld parking lot in O'Fallon, IL, which is just east of St. Louis, MO.

The Trip Begins

After going to church and lunch at Andy's with Kim, Brandon, Josh and Mema we set out for Montana.  Hopefully, if Sprint doesn't let me down, I will be able to keep you updated on where we are and what we have seen or done.

    Today has mostly been riding. We saw some pretty and unusual clouds.We made it to the west side of Knoxville, TN.  We are spending our very first night ever at Wally World, the biggest one I have ever seen.

Please keep Billy & me in your prayers for our safety and that God will use us in a mighty way.