Family ties...

 Continuing our visit with my west coast brother and sister in law. Today, in addition to them, I got to spend time with two of my favorite nieces, one nephew, one great nephew, one great niece, and some fun family in laws. In addition we all ate very well. Pumpkin waffles for brunch, and for dinner, BBQ ribs and chicken (made with an old family recipe), mashed potato salad, melon pieces, chips, baked beans, cake and cheese cake. After most of the non-resident guests had left we played a rousing game of Mexican Train. Because it was his first time visiting here, we 'let' my wonder spouse win. All in all, a perfect day with the family. 

 Moon rise over the farm.

One of the guests, a friend as well as family by marriage, brought this merry-go-round horse to show me. She created it from an old child's jumping horse, and brought it along on their four hour drive to come visit, because she knew I would appreciate her creativity. I certainly did.

Zippity do da...

It's been a lovely day here in the Spokane countryside. Words like serene, relaxing and blissful have been running through my mind.  Our longest drive (our only drive) was into town for hamburgers at Zips. Really quite tasty. Our great niece, 13, and greatnephew, 10, are joining us this evening so it's almost game time.

A view from our hike up the hill this moning. 

A view from their farm looking off to the distance. The quiet is only disturbed by clucking chickens and bleating goats. 

The scene going down their driveway. They own five acres, but vast fields, and  very few neighbors surround them. 

Were here!

This was mostly a driving day, driving distance and driving rain, but we have arrived safely at my west coast brother's home. So nice to be here.  

Took this picture while driving through Montana. One patch of blue in big sky country. 

Cold and old...

 Today we spent all day touring Yellowstone. It was like visiting an old friend. Glorious scenery, bubbling mud pots, hot pools, volcanic table land, some wildlife, and of course Old Faithful. Old Faithful is slowing down a bit these days, but aren't we all? I seem to remember from years past that Old Faithful erupted about once an hour. Now it's about once every 90 minutes. But we waited patiently and were rewarded with a good show. The only drawback to the day was the weather,  50 degrees, cloudy and rainy. I'm really glad I packed my rain jacket for this trip. Happily, the sun finally came out in time for the Big Show. 

Old Faithful of course. I took these pictures with my tablet and am pleased with the results.

This is one of my favorite bubbling hot pools. Love the color.

Blooping mud in one of many mud pots. Sorry I didn't record the sound but you can imagine it. Bloop, bloop, bloop. Yellowstone has more hot springs and geysers than anywhere else on earth. 

So many curves...

 Today was a long driving day with quite a bit of off interstate driving on scenic routes across the beautiful state of Wyoming. Many, many curving roads and stunning vistas. The highlight of the day came in the afternoon when we went high up Medicine Mountain to visit the Big Horn Medicine Wheel Nation Historic Landmark. It is at 9642 ft elevation near the crest of the Big Horn mountains with amazing views in all directions. Happily for my wonder spouse and myself, we did not have to walk the long uphill mile and a half to get to the wheel. It turns out that people over 65 can drive up to the site. Which sounds great, and we did it, but most of the drive was on a one lane dirt road with a sharp drop off on one side and no guard rails. It was an interesting experience.  The wheel itself is a large circle of white stones laid out like a wheel with lines of white stones leading like spokes to a large cairn of stones in the center.  According to the information provided the wheel in it's current state is about 250 years old but it is on a site that has been holy to several tribes for generations. It is also currently being used for traditional ceremonies. We we not fortunate enough to see one today. 

First a funny note. These tractors and several others were parked in front of the hotel where we stayed last night. It turns out that they were a group of people traveling by tractors to various sights. We saw them pull out this morning on their was to Mount Rushmore.

Here's a view of the Medicine Wheel. I couldn't get a long shot of the whole thing.

One of many views from our scenic drive. 

Awesome...

 Today, my west coast brother has informed me is "I Love Food Day."  My wonder spouse and I have decided that we certainly do, with ridiculously large dinners for the last couple of evenings. But it's OK because vacation calories don't count, right? I certainly hope not because tonight we finished off our dinner by sharing a piece of caramel cheese cake encased in almonds and covered with chocolate, whipped cream and caramelized bacon bits. If that doesn't shout vacation I don't know what does. In case you're concerned we did actually do more than eat today. We left the historic little town of Murdo, SD about 9:30am and took a wonderful drive through the Bad Lands.  About noon, we stopped for a while at Wall Drug Store. Hard not to stop after seeing signs for Wall Drug Store every few miles since Minnesota.  We spent the afternoon visiting the Crazy Horse monument and museum.  There has definitely been progress made since the last time I was there which has been several years ago. 

A view in the Bad Lands.  As we were on our way out we spotted these grazing Buffalo. 

They haven't started on the horse's head yet but Crazy Horse's head looks wonderful and the outstretched hand is shaping up. There is a long history here of cooperation between the sculptor and several Indian tribes. It's a fascinating place to visit.

Picture this..

 Today, day three of our journey, was a day of three visual delights. We began by touring the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. Then we explored a Prehistoric Indian Village and Excavation in Mitchell, South Dakota,  and finally took time to view Dignity, a massive beautiful monument near the Missouri River, still in SD. 

Did you know that Spam is very popular in Hawaiian but the most Spam per capita is eaten in Guam. The museum is full of history of WWII. Spam was created in !937 but became widely used during that war and subsequent ones.

The Prehistoric relics were excavated in the Mitchell SD area, and the Excavation site, partly shown here, has been preserved and enclosed in a large domed building. The museum, in a different building contained a great variety of relics from this tribe who lived in the area about 1000ad.

This huge statue, located at the Chamberlain visitors center, overlooking the Missouri River, is named Dignity. Truly awesome.