Home!

Home finally! Well, 2 of us are home.  Mallory still needs to get back to Indianapolis and Dad and Carol fly back home to Holiday, FL on Monday.

We took two days to drive the 1300 miles back to Bloomington. The first day we left Pinedale, WY and drive to Laramie, WY, the home of the University of Wyoming.   In 1945, a week after my dad graduated from high school, he joined the Army and boarded a train to Laramie, WY to start school at the University for Army Specialized Training (since he was so smart) to study Engineering since he wasn't yet 18.  After 6 months, he went to Camp Crowder in Missouri for Basic Training.  After Basic Training,  he was sent to Ft Monmouth in New Jersey, important to the story, because that's where he met Carol. 

Also at the University of Wyoming, Mallory and I searched the campus to find the Memorial bench celebrating the life of Matthew Shepard.   If you're not familiar with the story of Matthew Shepard, learn about The Matthew Shepard Foundation here:

https://www.matthewshepard.org

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard

We made it all the way to Lincoln, Nebraska the first night and finished the trip back to Bloomington tonight.

Here's what everyone liked best:

Carol: Beartooth Highway, the Tetons, sitting on the deck of the cabin in the Black Hills, driving through the tunnel in the Needles Highway, seeing the bison and wildlife

Dad/Jim: Beartooth Highway, Heart Mountain Japanese Internment camp,  Needles Highway,  the cabins we stayed in, the Grand Tetons and seeing lightning on the mountains

Mallory : Seeing the Prairie Dogs in the Badlands, the tunnel in the Needles highway, The Wyoming Dinosaur Center and Heart Mountain

Ian: The Badlands, Needles Highway, touching the snow at 10,000 feet at the Beartooth Pass.

Kelly: the Grand Tetons, the Beartooth Highway,  the splendor of Yellowstone, seeing the Buffalo for the first time in Custer State Park

What we all could have done without: The Corn Palace, Wall Drug, Mt Rushmore, the mosquitoes in Wyoming which actually feel like they bite, and the smell of sulphur.

I'll try to add a couple pictures when I find my camera. :)

Thanks for following our journey.