Friday, June 15, 2012

We left Nauvoo on Thursday and really covered ground.  We got all the way across Iowa and into Nebraska.  We did see a cougar in a wooded ravine right alongside the road, but were moving too fast to get a picture. 

We ran into a "severe thunderstorm" just west of Omaha, continuous lightning, nickle-sized hail, traffic on the freeway down to 20mph with flashers on for quite a ways.  I guess it had spawned a couple of tornadoes in Colorado, just south of us.  The wind was blowing 50-60mph across the freeway, sheets of rain.  We decided to spend the night in a motel in York, NE.  I'm not sure either of us wanted to be out in that stuff in a camper. 

We scooted out of town and drove the rest of the way across Nebraska, leaving the freeway at Ogallala and following the Mormon Trail up the North Platte to Torrington, WY, where the thunderstorms were threatening again, so are holed up in Grandma's Inn for the night. We had hoped to get west of the storms, but still have a way to go. Fortunately, both motels cost us less than we usually pay for a single night, and we got nice showers out of the deal.   

We will take some time to sort through pictures, and I'll post the ones that apply to this portion of the blog when we get back into coverage.  So far, so fun, so good! Casper and Landers tomorrow, I hope.
We have traveled quite a long way from Texas since the last post.  We haven't had good WIFI reception anywhere we have been until now. 
So, we went from Lee and Cindy's to Many, LA.  Stayed in an RV park called Southern Leisure-not recommending it to anyone.  The bathrooms and showers were scary.  The path into the park should have warned us.  Paved, but barely, and huge lumps and bumps.  At least it was only $10.  From there we went to Ashdown, AR.  The trip there was nice, the scenery was green and lovely.  The RV park was much nicer, still only $10, but with a decent shower!  We went on up to Branson, MO the next day and stayed there 2 nights.  Very nice private park with good restrooms and showers, right off the main road.  It was much quieter than I had expected.  The best part was that we got to see fireflies for the first time.  I was enchanted.  Unfortunately we couldn't get pictures of them.  We went to the Butterfly Palace, to the Titanic Museum, and to the Johnny Cash Songbook.  We enjoyed all of them very much.  Ken especially liked the Johnny Cash show.  The lead was good, but the guy who played the backup guitar, banjo, and the dombro was fantastic.  He is the champion bluegrass banjo player in the country.  He was with the group on the Andy Griffith Show who always were coming into town and giving Andy a hard time.  They could sing and play, though, and Andy would end up joining in.  We sat on the second row for the show, small theater, and Ken was right in front of him.  He was great.
From there we went up to Owensville, MO.  It was a nice park, but really warm.  Our campsite had absolutely no shade, and it was a ways to the bathroom/showers.
 Went from there up to Nauvoo.  We spent the next 5 nights there.  This was the closest to real camping that we have done.  The camp was a State Park, and only had electricity hookups, no water.  It also had bugs.  The last 2 nights we didn't turn on the lights in the trailer, just used a little flashlight that has a red light setting for light.  The bugs aren't attracted by the red light. 
We greatly enjoyed Nauvoo.  We went to church at the missionary Ward, and felt the great spirit there.  We did a temple session, went to the missionary show, Sunset on the Mississippi, and to the BYU Ballroom Dance Show.  Sunset on the Mississippi was so fun!  I laughed until I almost cryed at the antics.  The young people who do much of the show are a group of young people who try out each year.  Of course the BYU group is excellent.  They were in full costume and had backdrops and lighting.  This was all done on the outdoor stage.  We also saw all the historic sites in the restored area of Nauvoo.