Tues. May 22nd: BOULDER, COLORADO

We had such a wonderful night’s sleep in a fabulous bed.  The shower was heavenly, and Shirley made a delicious breakfast for all of us.  She reminded the girls and I of my mom because everything she does was similar to Nana.  Shirley made a wonderful egg dish with bread, sausage, and cheese, with fruit, and fresh blueberry muffins, just like my mom would make.  We felt totally spoiled and like we got a little taste of home.  We were enjoying visiting with Shirley and Al this morning that the time got away from us.  The kids were having a ball down stairs, which is their remodeled basement, with all the dress up wigs and outfits that they have for their grandkids. 

We didn’t leave their house until about 1:00, but it was well worth spending time with them.  What a sweet, Godly couple with a beautiful family . . . another enormous blessing to us along our journeys of amazingly gracious and hospitable families!!

 

As we drove off in the RV, Shirley and Al ran through their house to the back yard to wave at us when we drove by.  They are the sweetest couple!!

We drove to Boulder, Colorado to visit the Celestial Seasonings tea factory.  On the way we saw prairie dogs standing outside their homes right on the side of the highway . . . they were so adorable & not bothered by the cars at all.   

Celestial Seasonings give free tours and tastings of their famous teas known all around the world.  When we signed up for the tour they gave us “teakits”, which were packets of peach tea, for our entry into the tour . . . adorable!  We watched a movie first about the tea making process and how their company started.  Then we were given these lovely shower caps to wear over our hair through the factory.  They were hideous, but thankfully everyone looked ridiculous so it wasn’t embarrassing.   

The tour was fascinating and as we walked through the factory we could smell all the different flavors.   First we went through the milling area and learned that there are 3 steps to the milling process. The first step is to dry clean the plant because of course cleaning it with water would ruin the plant, so it’s a drying process.   After cleaning, the plant goes through a machine that cuts it and then sends it into an enormous sifter to take out all the unwanted parts of the plant. 

The next step in the process is the mixing of all the different kinds of herbs to create the wonderful flavored teas that we buy today.  Herbs come from all over the world: Argentina, India, Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, Sri Lanka, China, and Indonesia.  Celestial Seasoning is responsible to creating the herbal tea which is actually not a tea at all.  The name for herbal teas should actually be “herbal infusions” because green tea, black tea, and white tea are really the only true teas.  These “teas” are stored separate from all the other herbs in the “tea room”.  Green tea is steamed and loses some of it’s caffeine in the process, and black tea is rolled and keeps all of its caffeine.    White tea is extremely hard to get because it is only grown for 2 weeks out of the year, so it’s more of a rare tea than black or green.  All of these teas are mixed with all kinds of herbs to give them many different varieties of flavors. 

Our tour guide next took us in a very special room and her prefaced it with, “this is the only thing that you will remember from the tour.”  Then he opened the door for us to walk into the super strong, eye watering, nose clearing, and peppermint room.  It was so strong we would hardly stand to stay in there. It certainly was great for our sinuses though!!    Peppermint tea is the third most popular tea sold, with Sleepytime, and chamomile being one and two respectfully.    Peppermint and spearmint have mint oil with menthol so it is not milled the traditional way so the oils do not get ruined in the process.  It also has to be stored separately so that it doesn’t infuse it’s flavor in all the other flavors because it’s so strong.   

Last we walked through the packaging area where they can make 10 millions bags, and 500,00 boxes a day.  WOW!!  They are famous for the special “pillow” like tea bags instead of the strings.  They invented this type because they found it much more economical than the strings, saving the company millions of dollars a year.    Surprisingly Canada is the leading buyer of Celestial Teas.   It was an awesome tour and I’m so glad that we found this little place amongst the mountains of beautiful Colorado.   When we were done with the tour, we went to the tasting room where we could try any tea that we wanted.  My favorite was a new one called Peach Blossom!!  Yum. . . I love tea!!

 

After we finished in the tea shop we drove to Barb’s house.  She is a Californian family that just moved to Colorado about a year ago.  She had 3 adorable girls who she used to homeschool and this year they went to school for the first time and loved it.  Colorado schools are incredibly different than California schools. Her husband is still back in California trying to tie up the loose ends and find a job out here.  We have been praying for him to find the perfect job here in Colorado, so I know it’s just a matter of time, but we will keep praying.  It was so great to see Barb and the girls and she graciously is letting us stay with her for 2 nights.   



 

Mon., May 21st: WYOMING to COLORADO

We started out this morning in Gillette, Wyoming at the Rock Pile Museum which was all about mining coal and pioneer days.

We watched the movie on how they mine the surface coal right here in Gillette.  It is considered the energy capital of the United States.  They have large stretches of land with large amounts of coal in Gillette, Wyoming.  The Gillettes are famous and were very proud of their coal mining heritage!   The processing of the coal has four basic steps, and  it is all challenging work. 

The first step is removal of the top soil with a tractor.  The second step is that the workers set up the explosives (mainly dynamite & TNT) in which they use to blow up the ground to unveil the coal.  Basically they dig holes, place in the explosives 70 feet down into the earth, attach them together with instant heat sensitive string, and they move far away to set off the blast.  When the blast goes off the effect can be felt as a small earthquake all around  the world.  Pretty incredible!!  The third step in the process is scooping up the coal and dumping it into the enormous Liebherr Haul trucks that weigh 443,000 pounds when empty, and 1,163,000 pounds when full.  The tires on the truck are 15 feet high, the total height is 45’9”, and the trucks cost 3 million dollars apiece.  Those are some gigantic trucks!!  Next, the coal is taken the a storage area and then placed in crushers that crush the coal into two-inch pieces.  From there it’s moved on conveyor belts where eventually it is loaded onto trains.  Coal is the only cargo that these trains carry from Wyoming to central Missouri. 

After coal is recovered, the land is reclaimed.  The reclamation process includes backfilling the void with the top soil that was originally removed.  Then they prepare the seeds bed and sow approved seed mixtures.  And then they start all over again on another piece of land. 

When we left Gillette we had to take Douglas Highway all the way south to Douglas, Wyoming . . . I think that is so funny!!   As we were driving along, all of a sudden we saw buffalo right on the edge of the freeway roaming the hills.  This was a huge buffalo ranch.  Oh . . . we were so excited because we missed them at Custer State Park in South Dakota.  Of course we had to pull over!  There were many babies with their mothers, and they were actually cute!  They all looked at us, starred at us for a minute, and then turned and walked the other way.  It was hiliarious!!

This is definitely the great outdoors because we also saw antelope alongside the road. 

We continued driving through nowhere land and on to  Douglas town, Wyoming.  I love the name of the town but it was definitely Radiator Springs.  The town was awfully run down and nothing left of it.  All of these towns that we have passed between Kansas and Wyoming that have nothing to the town makes me sad.  Definitely a different way of life in America and makes me wonder how they survive.   We stopped in a few stores to try to find t-shirts, and finally we were lucky to find some at the drug store.  The girls got the ones with the Jackalope on it because Douglas is where the myth of the Jackelope came from.   The Jackalopes are legendary in the U.S. and attributed by the New York Times to a 1932 hunting outing involving Douglas Herrick of Douglas, Wyoming, and the town was named the "Home of the Jackalope" by the state of Wyoming in 1985.  Herrick and his brother had studied taxidermy by mail order as teenagers and when the brothers returned from a hunting trip, Herrick tossed a jackrabbit carcass into the taxidermy store, where it came to rest beside a pair of deer antlers. The accidental combination of animal forms sparked Douglas Herrick's idea for a Jackalope.  The first jackalope the brothers put together was sold for $10 to the La Bonte Hotel in town.  The visitors in town were in awe of this Jackalope and Douglas Chamber of Commerce issued thousands of Jackalope Hunting Licenses to tourists. The tags were good for hunting only during official Jackalope season, which was for only one day: June 31 (a nonexistent date because June has 30 days), from midnight to 2 AM.   Ha . . . what a joke . . . a good way to suck tourists in!!   It is still famous to this day and Douglas, Wyoming has a Jackalope day and parade the last weekend in June!  

Just east of Douglas, WY is Fort Laramie which is the most well know and important trading post of the 1800’s during travels west.   It was much bigger than I expected and had many buildings still intact and some with just remains.  It was built in 1834 near the confluence of the Laramie and North Platte Rivers.  The official name was Fort William and was a small post 100 by 80 feet in size.  It was the biggest buffalo trading post  until Fort Platte was built a mile away in 1841.  This rivalry spurred Fort William’s to replace their structure with a larger, adobe-walled structure named Fort John.    Indian tribes, especially the Lakota, traded tanned buffalo robes for manufactured goods.  Every spring caravans arrived at the fort with trade goods, and in the fall, buffalo hides and other furs were shipped east.  In 1841 the first of many emigrants arrived at Fort John and over the next 20 years thousands of emigrants bound for Oregon, California, and Salt Lake Valley would eventually stop at the fort.  In 1849 the U.S Army bought Fort John and the post was officially renamed it Fort Laramie.   

 

The army constructed new buildings for stables, officers, a soldiers quarter, a bakery, guardhouse, and powder magazine to house and support the garrison and it soon became the main military outpost on the Northern Plains.  The fort was also the primary meeting place for transportation and communications through the central Rocky Mountain region for the emigrant trails, the stage coach, the Pony Express, and the transcontinental telegraph.    It was also an important meeting place for several treaty negotiations with Northern Plains Indians, which included the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe.    The Indian, Crazy Horse, traded continually at Fort Laramie and because he was so revered and honored by all the various Indian tribes, Fort Laramie was never attacked by Indians.   The majority of  the buildings at Fort Laramie still remain today and have been restored.   If the building was not 80% intact it was unable to be restored and has become just a shell around Fort Laramie.  I am so glad that we ventured off the freeway a little to see this amazing place in the 1840’s-1860’s!!  We even got to see a bull snake slithering along the walking path. . . . yuck, I hate snakes.  Thankfully it wasn’t a rattle snake which is the biggest fear of mine.  But this snake was huge and it didn’t seem to be bothered by the presence of the kids excitedly taking pictures.  I had to walk away – I really can’t stand snakes, but it was fun for them to see.   

We drove another hour and a half to our sweet friend’s house in Windsor, Colorado, which is right outside of Fort Collins.  Shirley is my mom’s best friend from high school and I haven’t seen her in probably 15 years.  They were very gracious and excited to have us come stay overnight with them.  We pulled up in the RV and Shirley, Al, their daughter Amy, who I haven’t seen since we were in college, and her husband and 3 girls were all there to greet us.   They have a beautiful home with their back yard looking straight out at the Rocky Mountains. 

We had a wonderful dinner with them and chatted with Shirley and Al until midnight.  They were so adorable and just kept talking and talking.  Al was telling us all about his men’s ministry’s at his church and it was wonderful to hear all about his passion for God.  He had his Bible on the kitchen table and it was so worn from reading it constantly that many pages were torn.  What a Godly couple and so inspiring to Shelley and I!!

Sun. May 20th: SOUTH DAKOTA: MOUNT RUSHMORE

It is an absolutely beautiful day with perfect temperatures, beautiful sunshine, and incredible surroundings at this incredible KOA.  We took our time this morning and let the kids play around all over the KOA.  They had an  all you can eat pancake breakfast for $2.50 and they were thrilled.  They went swimming, played mini golf, played on the play ground, and jumped on the jumpy pillow . . . they had a blast. 

We went back to Mount Rushmore and they finished their Junior Ranger book after watching the movie and looking at all the exhibits. Originally Mount Rushmore was an idea thought of by state historian Doane Robinson who thought of carving giant statues in South Dakota’s Black Hills.

He wanted the sculptures to stand at the gateway to the west where the Black Hills rise from the plains, that we drove through for hours, to the Rockies.  He imagined the tall, thin peaks of the Rockies to transform it into a row of Indian leaders and American explorers who shaped the frontier.  Master sculptor and artist Gutzon Borglum was hired.  He had made his name known through the sculpting of the Stone Mountain memorial, in Georgia, in 1915, remodeling the Statue of Liberty torch, sculpting the apostles of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, a seated Lincoln in Newark (which is the same one we saw at Lincoln’s train station in Springfield), and an oversized Lincoln bust for the United States Capitol.   Borglum scouted out a location in the Black Hills and found the 5,725 foot Mount Rushmore, named in 1885 after the New York lawyer Charles E. Rushmore.  It was a broad wall of exposed granite facing the southeast to receive direct sunlight for most of the day.  Borglum envisioned four U.S. presidents; the one’s representing the growth and expansion of America, from colonial times to the 1900’s.  George Washington, the father of this country & first U.S. president; Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, third president, and genius of the Louisiana Purchase; Theodore Roosevelt, the 26^th president, who promoted the construction of the Panama Canal, and began causes like conservation of natural resources and economic reform; and Abraham Lincoln, the 16^th president, and whose leadership during the Civil War ended slavery in America. 

The work began in 1927 taking a total of 14 years and  only six years were spent on the actual carving.  The project was interrupted because of money and Borglum personally lobbied the government for money and was given  $836,000 of federal money toward the total cost of almost $1 million dollars.   Borglum started with sketches in plaster and then transferred his models to the mountain with his “pointing” machine.  A metal shaft was placed at the center of the models head and attached at the base of the shaft was a protractor plate which marked the degree, and pivoted to measure the angle from the central axis.  The weighted line hung from the bar and slid back and forth to measure the distance from the central head point and the vertical distance from the top of the head.  The only shaping technique available to the carvers was the removal of the stone using dynamite to blast away the weathered rock and reach the granite for carving.  An egg shape was made for the head and then workers swung by cable seats called Bosun chairs.  First they used pneumatic drills to honeycomb the granite with closely spaced holes to nearly the depth of the final surface.  Then the men bumped away the drill holes and lines with pneumatic hammers to create detail and a smooth, white surface.   The movie and museum was fascinating to actually watch how the details of the faces were done.   Washington’s head was dedicated in 1930, then Jefferson in 1936, Lincoln in 1937, and Roosevelt in 1939.  Borglum died in March of 1941 and the final touches of the sculptures were finally completed in October of 1941 with Borglum’s son Lincoln supervising  the completion.   

The presidential trail walk was a great way to see the faces close up!!

We left Mt. Rushmore to drive to Custer State Park so we could see some Bison.  Unfortunately the sun was going down and the drive around the park had steep hills so we wisely chose to turn around without seeing the bison we were looking forward to seeing.  They were all probably up in the hills for the night anyways!!  We started on our drive to Gillette, Wyoming, which is 2 hours west.  Randomly, after about a half hour of driving along the freeway, a little turtle came walking out into the road, towards our car.  Ahhh . . . Shelley and I both screamed lightly and she swerved a little to miss him. 

We drove 2 hours, which was really 3 ½ hours in the dark hills, to Gillette, Wyoming.   When we arrived at the Walmart we were staying at in Gillette, Wyoming we discovered that the street it was on was Douglas Highway!!  Isn’t that hysterical??  Our families were truly meant to be together!!  J 

Sat. May 19th: NEBRASKA to SOUTH DAKOTA

Down the road from the Walmart, right off the freeway was a Wild Bill Cody trading post and fort.  It was an adorable old western store full of fun country items. 

 It also had an amazing diorama of Wild Bill Cody’s “Wild West Show”.   The man who built it hand carved each character and carefully sewed all the tents together.  It took him 12 years to make the whole set.  It played every 30 minutes with music and description of the show.  Some of the figures move to the actions of their role in the show.  It was amazing! 

Wild Bill Cody was a Union Army Scout from 1861 to 1890.   He rode for the Pony Express  in 1860 and he was a stage coach driver in 1865.  In 1867 he killed 4,280 buffalo in 8 months which gave him the name “Buffalo Bill” and made him famous.  He decided in 1883 to start the “Wild West Show” on a ranch in North Platte, Nebraska which is just a couple of miles up the road from this store.  His partner was Bailey of Barnum and Bailey which eventually became the circus.  They were so successful that they traveled all over the world with their show and is still remembered as the greatest wild west show ever to be done.   We’re so glad that we stopped so that the kids could learn something about “Buffalo Bill” and shop the western goods!!

Getting back on the road of nothingness we drove on to Chimney Rock, Nebraska.   There is not much out here in Nebraska but the land has changed quite a bit from Kansas with more hills and rock formations.   We also followed the North Platte River and crossed over it several times which is the major river in Nebraska where Omaha and Arapaho Indians originally lived because of the water.   Chimney Rock is a beautiful natural rock formation that has a pointed top and was a major  landmark in the 1800’s for the wagon trains going to Oregon and California.  It was also one of the famous Pony Express stops.  It was amazing to see and a wonder at how that rock can stand on top of one another like that.   All I can say is God is amazing!!

We had to drive another 3 hours to Mount Rushmore and thankfully after driving a little longer we entered Mountain Time and gained another hour.  The moment we entered South Dakota the terrain was incredibly different.  It is very mountainous, woodsy, with beautiful rock formations.   I felt like I was in Tahoe.  We had to climb several mountains and we could tell that we were in higher elevation.   We finally arrived at Mount Rushmore just in time for the amazing evening program where they light up the faces on the mountain.  They have a huge outdoor amphitheater right under the faces and the Rangers do a very special program every night.  First the ranger gave a long talk about the Lewis & Clark expedition and President Jefferson.  It was awesome because we had just been to the Lewis & Clark museum in St. Louis, and everything he said, the kids had just learned.  After the ranger was finished talking, he started an outdoor movie that was all about the creation of the 4 president heads and why they were chosen.  As the movie was finishing, slowly the lights were illuminating the faces.  It took about 7 minutes for them to be fully bright enough to see.  It was spectacular!!  I am so glad that we made it.

The temperature is definitely colder here in the mountains and actually felt very refreshing.  Next, we drove 5 minutes to our South Dakota KOA.  As we drove in we were in awe of how big it was and the amazing entrance that had all kinds shops of  ice cream, fudge, wine, and a general store.  They had covered wagons for rides around the KOA and a huge pool!  WOW . . . I think this one is going to take the prize as the best one yet!!

Friday, May 18th: KANSAS to NEBRASKA

Today is my 21^st Anniversary and I don’t get to be with my man.  L  And even worse yet is driving through western Kansas with 90 degree weather, no air conditioning, and 40 mile an hour winds.  Happy Anniversary honey – wish you were here!  No actually I’m glad you are home today in beautiful Santa Rosa!  J

We sadly said goodbye to Kara and her family this morning and headed out for Nebraska.  Kansas is everything you would think I would be driving through it – flat, hot, windy, straight roads, and boring!!!   And Nebraska is not much better.  It had a few more hills, rocks, and trees, but there is not much out here. 

We just kept driving for hours through really small nothing towns.  We stopped at one town to get gas and we were going to buy the kids a slurppy, but they didn’t have any.  Then we drove up the street to Dairy Queen, and it was out of business.  McDonalds seemed to be the only place open here, so out of total desperation, we went to McDonalds for McFlurries and I got a smoothie.  WOW . . . that’s desperate because I can’t stand McDonalds, but we were so hot it actually tasted good!

The one exciting stop of the day was seeing a sign off of the freeway for a Pony Express stop.  Of course we had to pull off and go see it!  It was small, because that’s exactly what they were like, but adorable!! 

This was one stop of many along the Missouri to California route for the Pony Express from April 1860, to the last run on November 20^th, 1861.  We’ve been to the final stop and museum  in Old Town, Sacramento, California.  This innovative overland mail service lasted only 19 months but was an important part of the history of the  American west.    The brave riders of the Pony Express helped spread important news, shrink the continent, and bind the nation that was being torn apart by the Civil War.   In the mid-1800’s pioneers anxiously awaited mail from back home but it took months to arrive, and by then the news was old.  Three partners started a new firm, the Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Company making the official name of the Pony Express.  They raised money in New York and political support in Washington, D.C.  The company had 67 days to hire riders, station keepers, and mail handlers and buy horses, food, and other supplies and distribute them to stations across the route.    The route was organized into five divisions, numbered east to west.   The first leg ran from St. Joseph, Missouri to Fort Kearney, Nebraska Territory on the Platte River, which is exactly where we were.  The second went to Horseshoe Station near Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory.  The third took the emigrant trail to Fort Bridger and Salt Lake Valley in Utah.  The fourth, to cross the Great Basin, they followed a route opened in 1858 which ran south of the Great Salt Lake desert to north of today’s Eureka, Nevada.  The fifth leg was the toughest of the trip, crossing the Nevada desert and rugged Sierra Nevada, finally arriving at Sacramento and San Francisco, California.    The Pony Express established home stations every 75 to 100 miles to house riders between runs and smaller relay stations every 10 to 15 miles to provide riders with fresh horses.   Some of the famous names for the Pony stations are Kearny, Chimney Rock (which we are going to tomorrow), Scotts Bluff, Fort Laramie (which we are going to in Wyoming), Sweetwater, and Fort Bridger were already famous in western history from the wagon trains.  Many were upgraded from existing stagecoach stations, but some were built from scratch.  The route expanded from 85 stations on the first ride to 147 stations by mid-1861. 

The advertisement read: “Men Wanted! . . . Men familiar with the management of horse, as hostlers or riders, not for the faint of heart.  Must be between age 14 – 40 and weighing no more than 120 pounds.  Must carry 20 pounds of mail and 25 pounds of equipment, and not be afraid of death.”    Yikes!!!  That’s definitely not for the faint of heart.   The company bought 400-500 horses, many thoroughbreds for eastern runs and California mustangs for western stretches.  Horses averaged 10 miles per hour and sometimes went up to 25 miles galloping.   During a riders 75-100 mile route a rider changed horses 8 to 10 times about every 10 miles.  They would quickly get a fresh horse at each stop and sometimes stop for a quick meal or drink. 

In April 1861 the Pony Express brought news of the outbreak of the Civil War and on its last run it brought news of battles and lists of dead and wounded to anxious westerners.    In 19 months the Pony Express marked a milestone in our nation’s communication system and became an enduring legacy.  Ever since 1978 the National Pony Express Association rides the rail in a 10-day, round-the-clock, non-stop event.  More than 500 riders fallow a 1,943-mile route that is as close as possible to the original trail.  That Pony Express post was very exciting to see!! 

We drove a little longer up the freeway and FINALLY we arrived at the Walmart in North Platte. We were exhausted from driving!  Praise God tomorrow we are going to Mount Rushmore!!

Tues.,May 15th-Fri.,May17th: KANSAS

Tuesday, May 15^th,

When I woke up this morning I could hardly walk!  What did it do to my foot again???  The good thing is that I can put pressure on it, but it hurts.  I couldn’t tell if I broke a bone by my little toe because when I twisted it I heard a “pop”.  It’s not in the same area as my original break, it’s the bottom area of my little toe.  I can’t put any pressure on that area so I was trying just to walk on my heal.    Well, Shelley’s brother in law flies a little plane and offered to take everyone up flying this afternoon, but I decided that I should just stay home.  Kara was so sweet and got me all set up on her bed with my foot propped up on pillows and the TV all set to watch the taped Dancing With the Stars episode from last night.  I actually enjoyed the quiet time and was thankful for a little peace and quiet.  The rest of the group, including my girls, went to go flying in Wichita. 

About 2 hours later Brittany called me to see how I was doing and told me she just got to fly by herself with Uncle Mark and he let her land the plane.  She was so excited!!  She was also asking if I needed to go to the doctor??  I didn’t really want to go but I figured since we still had 2 weeks left on our trip that I should figure out what I did to my foot.    And Kara insisted that I go.  I had to call Kaiser  to figure out what it do as an out of town patient, but it was actually very easy thankfully . . . I just hope now that I don’t get a huge bill in the mail for going to the clinic!!

We drove to Newton, Kansas to go to the Urgent Care.  Dr. Snyder was a very friendly down to earth Doctor.  He was incredibly intrigued with our trip and where we have been, even more so than my hurt foot.   We got to talking so much about the trip that he almost forgot why I was there.  Of course he told me that was going to need x-rays so he could determine the course of care.  I hobbled down the hall way to x-ray and then hobbled back to the room.  The x-ray technician was so kind that she automatically made me a copy of the x-rays to take home with me.   When Dr. Snyder came back into the room, he thought that I had broken my foot as he was looking at my original break.  I explained to him that it doesn’t hurt where my old break is, but that it hurts under my pinky toe.  This totally puzzled him because he said my original break looked like an acute fracture, but where my pinky toe is looked like an old break.  Ha . . . we are definitely in the mid-west Kansas.  He decided to talk to the radiologist to see what he thought it looked like, and the radiologist said the same thing.   I believe that they are looking at my bad break from November as the doctor told me in January,  at the last x-ray, that it will still look like it was broken probably for a about a year. Well, regardless of what I did he offered me a walking boot to immobilize the foot.  I’m not too happy about putting my foot back inside that darn boot, but I would rather do that then crutches.   The boot definitely helped with walking, but I’m still not happy about wearing it again!

Wed. May 16^th,

Today we just hung out at the house and rested my foot.  Shelley’s sister works and couldn’t take today off, so while she was working we worked on our blogs and the details for the rest of the trip.   Kara was so gracious and it was such a blessing to be at her house where we could rest. 

Brooke wanted my camera to take some pictures of her and Grace.  I told her if she was going to take pictures that she had to take some of the house and the dogs too.  They had a great time and did an excellent job taking pictures of one another. 

Thurs. May 17^th,

My foot was still sore this morning but I think it might be better.  I’m pretty sure I just sprained a muscle in the front part of my foot since I can walk on it.   So we decided to go to Wichita to a place called Cow Town, an actual 1800’s cowboy town.   It was awesome but walking around a dirt town in 92 degree weather with a walking boot on was a little challenging.  Although,  I’m glad I went and didn’t miss out because it was a great representation of what the old cowboy towns looked like.  Two original early 1800 houses had been moved from another area of Wichita.   They had been slightly restored but mostly original . . . wow, they were primitive.  I am constantly reminding the kids to be thankful for our house and even the small RV after seeing these bare bone houses and living quarters.  They sure have seen a lot of them!! 

As we first walked into Cow Town, the girls were able to try their swing at lassoing a cow (of course not a real cow).    It took several swings to try and get the hang of it, but they finally did.

Then we walked into the town area where there were several lower middle class houses, and one upper class home.  We learned that the living room/entrance area was the most important room in the house for entertaining.   Most of their money for decorating the house at that time period would be put into making the entrance room and dining room really beautiful and the rest of the house and kitchen could be very plain.  Guests wouldn’t usually go past the front room unless a dinner was being served.   Behind closed doors no one would know that the rest of the house was plain. 

There was a Livery with a steer and horses, and a stagecoach that the kids got to climb into.  It usually is brought out for rides when they have special events, but the kids were excited to just sit in it.    In the center of town was a train station, a saloon where we bought some tasty Sarsaparilla, a hotel, a blacksmith, and a meat market.  At 3:00 in the middle of town the workers who were dressed up did a reenactment of a shoot-out in a traditional cowboy town.  They were actually very funny because the lady took over and shot the bad guy!!

Along the backside of the town we walked through several other adorable buildings like the barber shop, land office, the Wichita City Eagle and printing shop, the saddle & harness shop, the milliner clothing store, the law offices, dry goods & notions, the funeral parlor, the carpenter’s shop,  and the general store.   I loved the town even though I had to hobble around!!

On the way back to Kara’s we went to Cabela’s, which is a huge outdoor hunting, fishing, and recreation store that is famous all over the US.  They don’t have a large amount of stores but their catalog in awesome to order from.  My hunting family loves Cabela’s and has been totally outfitted with gear for all their outdoor needs.  Brooke might want to take a shot at hunting someday. . . . watch out Papa, here she comes!!

We had a wonderful “Jambalaya” dinner with chicken and shrimp that Uncle Mark made especially for us and we sat out on their lovely deck looking over the corn fields of Kansas.  It was a beautiful evening and the temperature was perfect now because it had been so hot today.   It was a joy to get to know Shelley’s sister’s family and such a blessing to be in a home when I hurt my foot again!  Even though trials are constant, God’s perfect timing is always evident.