Blog

This is about our trip to Newfoundland and Labrador, a province in Eastern Canada. Due to technical and other delays, I am writing this four weeks into the trip, from New Brunswick.

We left home on Thursday August 3, in the afternoon and stayed in Barstow overnight. Lots of traffic along the way and the weather was hot. We got up the long hill east of Baker without problem since it was not very hot.

We spent the next night at the Richfield Utah KOA campground where we have stayed before. It is quiet and there are places to ride out bikes, except this time it rained on our bike ride a bit. Next day we went via Evanston Wyoming to our friend Becca’s in Paris Idaho. Lots of traffic for a Raspberry festival in Garden City along the way. Spent a day with Becca and daughter Morgan and boyfriend Matt before heading east towards I-80.

Stayed at a KOA in Rock Springs Wyoming and had dinner with our friends Don and Nancy. We had met them in the Tetons 25 years ago and have seen them only 2-3 times since, but we always enjoy spending hours talking when we do see them, over dinner.

Heading along I-80 we were looking for camping in Laramie and got a recommendation to go to Curt Gowdy State Park which was a bit further east. It was way off the freeway (which is good!) but was the best campground we had been in on this trip. It is on a lake and was really quiet. We liked it so much we stayed all of the next day, riding our bikes around part of the lake and just relaxing. It rained some but that was fine since it as hot hot like we had expected.
 

We next headed to North Platt where we wound up staying in a run-down trailer park. Next morning we did a tour of Buffalo Bill’s residence and training facility where his Wild West Show prepared for their world-wide tours. The site includes a two-story Victorian house and a huge barn, along with various outbuildings like an ice house and a spring house (cooled by spring water running through it to keep vegetables cool).

We were following I-80 which took us by Grand Island and Doniphan, Nebraska. Doniphan is where our friend and neighbor, Tim Lowry, grew up. His family had a farm there and there is even a road named after them.

We drove through Doniphan and took a few photos for Tim.

A little past Chicago, we visited Indiana Dunes State Park. We had been there many years ago on another cross-country trip. The campground is fairly new and quiet. Nearby are sand dunes along the shore of Lake Michigan. Our neighbor, Anita, remembers rolling down the dunes as a kid. Last time I remember being able to see the skyline of Chicago, but this time it was too hazy. The beach has been enjoyed by lots of people for many years. There is an old pavilion building built in 1929 that is still there.

We met a nice family from Chicago with their two boys. They can get to the dunes in one day and enjoy camping there. We took a photo of them, but my phone broke a few days later and those photos could not be recovered to the replacement so this is the photo the dad took.

Next, on to visit Mary Ann's cousins in Ohio!