Left Las Vegas today-Meteor site from 50k yrs ago

Not a happy day for me, so not going to post much tonight....I hate hate hate leaving my sisters and my daughter especially :o( but we won't go there
It's now about 8:30 and we pulled into a little town called Holbrook in Arizona, we're about 230 miles away from Albuquerque! We made one stop today at some Meter/crater place on the way here and actually we stopped at exactly 4:55 because they were closing at 5:30 and we were debating whether or not it would be worth the $30 admission (it wasn't) but I guess now we can say we saw a hole in the ground that was something from another planet (I'll post a pic or two later)
gotta run now

Entering Vegas...51 miles to go

alright I'm taking a break for a couple days...be back when we head out to Albuquerque on the 1st of October...cya all soon
We'll be enjoying time with my daughter, sisters and their families and chillin (maybe win a jackpot and take a couple more weeks off, lol)

Beaver, Utah

this town has a special place in my heart...you see back in May I did this drive with my darling daughter (as some of you know) however, we did it in 4 days straight with one stop 0vernight (for my birthday as a special treat to me cause my ole bones needed a break from being cooped up in her little VW Passat all that time, lol. Anyways, we got to Beaver and no where along the way had any gas station attendant offered to check our fluids, under the hood or tires for that matter & when we pulled off in this god forsaken exit there were two gas stations,one on the left and one on the right-we chose the right for some unknown reason (I swear God was leading us)! WEll, good thing we did because this young fellow not only checked our fluids but happened to see that one of her tires had a bubble and the other one had a split down the side of it and let me tell you the speed limit is 80MPH out here......we would've definitely been KILLED if either tire would've blown out-so trust me when they say God works in mysterious ways!
SOOOOO, yesterday my sister Carol and I talk, as we have been doing regularly along the way and when I tell her where we are and about this Beaver town, she says one of her patients runs a RV park and Mexican restaurant in -yup- you guessed it Beaver! Now, wouldn't that be nice if we could pay back a local for something nice that was done for us back in May......so we push and we push to make it to this little park and I'll post some pics, lol.....because it is definitely not something we would've found -especially since it was way after dark. In fact many a times along the way we were so tired we were ready to just pull off and just camp by the road and finally about 8:15 PM we pull in way off the beaten path (have to admit they gave us good directions tho) The owner even teried to talk us into trying some of his wife's mexican cooking but we were soooo exhausted we didn't unhook, or hook up to anything, just fed the dog, walked him and crashed!
First one is their house (green), second one is the entrance and third is the office :o)

Rawlins, Wyoming-nothing much here

Made it and yup couldn't have asked for a closer campground than this one, lol- we're two blocks from a hospital and last night was uneventful...so here i sit catching up on my blogs while my man catches up on his sleep-poor fellow, been a tough couple nights for him (and days driving since I can't drive with the camper)
We pulled in about 5 yesterday, did a little putzin with the Bail and then walked over to the local eatery- i wanted to cooked spaghetti but no, he said give it a break and yuk was their food horrible! It was crowded so we thought it would be a good choice but I guess cause it was the only place in town everyone thinks it's good-I'd rather eat ground meat and those of you that know me know how I feel about that!
We'll be pulling out in about an hour-it's about 7 AM-figure I'll let him sleep in, just cause I couldn't sleep doesn't mean he can't -amend that line...we didn't leave till 11:30 I worked on these blog entries because internet was finally good :o)
I'm getting anxious about seeing my sisters and daughter, so I just want to get to Vegas at this point! Since we missed Ang's birthday yesterday :o( that was our original push date to get there but we'll be there by Saturday-now we just have to find a place to park this camper that night. we have somewhere Sunday on but Joe was checking for Saturday-don't know how he made out, guess I'll be making some calls today in the car.
I'll have to post a picture of this road we took yesterday while driving-it was 69 miles long and it was great for us with the camper no traffic and 65-70 mph but in the middle of no where all of a sudden there were all these trains and loaded with coal and a coal town--we're talking thousands and thousands being hauled. I guess when you hear of a mining accident in Wyoming mines-this is it because you could see for about hundred miles and there was nothing and then this popped up.

Wyoming sure is vast, beautiful and not much of anything except land & sky

Mt Rushmore

Mt Rushmore- carving of four of our president's - Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt & Lincoln and it was the work of sculptor Gutzon Borglum begun in 1927 and took only 14 years to complete but the difference being this was state funded and only cost -well back then it was a dear amount- nearly 1 million dollars! It is set up as a money maker now, definitely a different set up than Crazy Horse's display and theirs they will not accept any government money-it's strictly private contributions.
Oh Lauren & Ali-you'll be happy to know that the day we visited here one of the original workers a man named Nick was here signing autographs for a book he wrote about working on the faces -so we bought the book for you to read and had him autograph it for you girls :o) You can take it to school on day and show it. It tells how the faces were made and cut out of the side of the mountain.
We stayed at a cute campsite that was in the middle of all these places in Hill City but it was bad for internet and phone service so needless to say I was going a little batty after the second night....so don't know if it was nerves or still whatever is in my system but finally after trying for over 2 1/2 hrs to work and getting so frustrated i gave up and went to bed- in the middle of the night these welts came back a hellin and my face, back, arms and legs swelled so bad.... poor Joe wanted to rush me to a hospital but alas there was none nearby so I popped the pills I had leftover from my last visit and finally the swelling started to subside and we packed up the next morning and headed out a day early towards Wyoming and Vegas :o( My face looked as though I was bubbled from a burn and the welts are hives that are 2 and 3" big! I just can't figure this out and it hasn't affected my throat yet!!!! But, Joe has had it with wilderness our next stop is going to be near a hospital, lol

Update for my girls-so far we've been thru the following states...so mark them down for us on your map!

Ohio,Illinios,Missouri,Kansas,Nebraska,Wyoming

Badlands-truly unique, God's creations

We really needed more time going thru here & better shapes (our bodies) because I would've loved to do a little hiking. I felt as tho I had driven into something in another world!
At first we were thinking it was just going to be some mountains and ok maybe some wildlife but OMG it was like we stepped into Planet Mars or some huge Sand Castle with no water around -it's so hard to explain. It's like the moons surface but so much more elaborate with fossile beds and jagged spires that have eroded over the years and have these deep crevasses and unique scenery that just make you want to explore on foot or horseback or whatever! Of course there were some animals and whatnot in there but not much living-it was eerie but beautiful & of course we lost sunlight so fast and it was not somewhere you wanted to be in the dark :o(
I will attach pictures soon-you'll see and make your own opinions!

9-22-09 Crazy Horse Monument (work in progress)

wow-what an amazing thing to see! This is nothing else was worth the trip and tomorrow we're heading to Mt Rushmore which is supposed to a another marvel.....we'll see :o) They say that all of Mt Rushmores 4 presidents heads will fit in Crazy Horses head-that is how big this monument is in comparison.
Anyway, apparently the Indian's decided this Crazy Horse fellow needed a monument and of all the people in the world they decided a man of polish decent would be the man to do it...of course he just so happened to have been born on the same day as Crazy Horse so there was Karma there and you know the Indians and Karma. So this man Korczak Ziolkowski started on a mission by himself in 1948 he started carving the face- just that was completed in 1998, when its done it'll be 641' long and 563' high. He married a lady and they had 10 kids and they had 28 kids and most of them still work the mountain, in fact his wife still is alive and still oversees the progress with 7 of the children everyday.
You can go online i believe and see an actual live shot of work in progress and sometimes when they dynamite because there is no state funding it's slow but it is amazing. It's http://www.crazyhorse.org/ and also there is a really good laser show at 7:45 every night that tells the story-don't know tho if they put that on the site....maybe
Oh and Lauren & Ali, you will be so proud of PopPop....he actually got you guys a piece of Crazy Horse's face that they dynamited away & he's bringing it home as a souvenir for you guys-you asked for a rock and now you have something from here-pretty cool huh! It's granite and it's just like everyone back home makes counter tops and floors from-daddy or mommy can explain it to you .