Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wyoming

It has been a very long and exciting 3 days, so we thought we'd post a mid-week blog to share all the fun. We left Chicago Monday morning and drove all day until we reached Kilen Woods State Park in Minnesota. Beautiful place, removed from the highway and very quiet, also a fantastic location for anyone wishing to shoot a horror film in which campers are attacked by thousands of mosquitoes. But, again, very beautiful and quiet.


Yesterday (Tuesday) morning we drove through South Dakota. Anyone who has driven through SD on I-90 knows there are more billboards for Wall Drug and the Corn Palace than anything else. So... our first stop was in Mitchell, SD to see the Corn Palace. The theme this year is Every Day Heroes so we got to see corm murals of teachers, fire fighters, and the like. They had a map of the world at the Corn Palace where visitors could stick a pinto denote their home. After much debate, we decided on NC.

Next, we enjoyed the scenic route through the Badlands. WOW! What a sight. We kept appreciating all the roads and the fact that we were in a CR-V and not a horse drawn buggy. It just isn't hard to see how the Badlands got that name.

Our next stop of the day was to pick up some cotton balls and Calamine lotion for my poison ivy. We had checked gas stations with no luck, so decided Wall Drug was our answer. In case you are wondering if the largest drug store in the world has cotton balls, Calamine lotion, and a bucking bronco... it does.



After a long day we reached Keystone, SD, drove over Iron Mountain and found a delightful place to camp not too far from Mt. Rushmore. Our campground turned out to be for people with horses (the name Elk Haven Horse Camp probably should have been our first clue) but they let us stay despite the fact that we did not have any horses to speak of so we wouldn't have to stay at the campground down the road with the mini-golf course, karaoke, a tiny swimming pool, and a serious tent city. We enjoyed the karaoke from a distance at our private campsite where we made the best dinner over coals I've ever had - steak and veggies cooked in foil! We took a drive over to Mt. Rushmore and as we clicked our camera for the first picture of those awesome faces, the battery died. But, no worries we charged her up and returned this morning so we could snap some shots for this blog.

We drove into Wyoming today, and are camping in Greybull tonight. The drive through the mountains was incredible! Tomorrow we're headed to Yellowstone! What a great state Wyoming is!

-Nan

P.S. We have been rating the welcome centers and welcome signs of the 20 states we have been through on this trip. Oklahoma- very nice welcome signs, but you're beat our by Minnesota! WOW!



Also, Wisconsin gets major props for having an attractive sign with parking and a little walking path to get to the sign for photo ops!


If you have a favorite state for welcome signs, we'd love to know about it so it can be added to our wealth of state welcome sign knowledge.

Illinois

After St. Louis, we headed to Galesburg, IL to visit Josh and Knox College (my alma mater). We spent some time walking around campus, which really did not take all that long as it is very small, saw a few staff and faculty, enjoyed a Knox community potluck, and an evening at Seminary Street Pub. We also had the chance to meet a few of Josh's friends and co-workers- all fabulous people! Chris and I spent one day out at Green Oaks, Knox's biological field site, canoeing and spotting jumping fish.


From Galesburg, we drove east to Chicago. Our first night in town we met Blair for dinner at Duck Walk (where Chris and I had our first date, also where he proposed). Yesterday we lingered around Wrigley Field, hoping to score some tickets to the Cubs game, but to no avail. So we settled for watching the game at Sluggers (a bar across the street that has batting cages!). Cubs almost blew it, but they ended up flying the big W flag after 2 extra innings.

Last night we met some people to celebrate Blair's friends birthday. We met some really wonderful people and ate the best grilled corn and chicken ever. Hats off to the chef- Jason (Blair's brother).

We're enjoying our last day in Chicago and prepare for much camping and driving as we head to Oregon!

Nan

Heading North

Hello, all!

We had a great time in St. Louis. We were there visiting the newly engaged Kate and Adam. Our time in there went by in a blink. We were only there for 3 days and had so much on our plates to do. Jess and Lisa met us in St. Louis so the six of us could hand out. Which was an awful lot of fun because we were all staying in Kate and Adam's very "cozy" one bedroom apartment. Originally we had planned on meeting Jonathan and Meghan too, but schedules didn't work out and we missed them by a few hours. Which is probably for the better, since the only available sleeping space in the whole apartment was in the bathroom.

We did a lot of walking around St. Louis and saw the arch (of course!) which is always a magnificent sight. But by far, the best thing we saw was the City Museum (www.citymuseum.org). It is this wonderful hands-on museum in downtown St. Louis where you can touch, climb on, crawl through, slide, and literally get lost in the exhibits. It's really less museum and more huge playground. It was loads of fun.

Other than walking around St. Louis and playing at the City Museum, we spent most of our time hanging out at the apartment with friends we wont get to see for two years. We barbequed, watched movies, and played on Adam's Wii Fit.

Goodbye Kate, Adam, Jess, and Lisa! We'll miss you all!

Chris

Complete

"Medical Complete. A decision has been reached regarding your medical review. Please look for a letter in the mail."

A little ominous, but inspiring nonetheless. Our medical paperwork is complete and now we have to wait for a letter saying that we passed. This is such exciting news! As soon as our letters are in hand, we can call our placement officer to see what she has in store for us!

Nan and I just hit Chicago, so soon I'll put up some photos from our St. Louis visit. We just wanted to update everyone on the exciting news!

Chris

Tulsa Time

I feel like it's been forever since we've had a chance to write on our blog! We have been so busy since we got to Tulsa! I'll do my best to catch everyone up...

We got to Tulsa on Tuesday, June 24th. We spent two full days driving from Florida and we decided on a southern route. We hit Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana on our first day driving. We spent the night camping in a nearly deserted state park in Louisiana... well, we thought it was deserted anyhow. It was actually inhabited by what I can only guess as about 13 bajillion very aggressive mosquitoes. Our tent was about 20 yards off of a swamp.
The next day we cut through Arkansas and Texas and finally made it to Oklahoma. When we arrived we had a very tasty Clendenin/Lenora family dinner with hot wings (thanks Dad!) and home made spring rolls (thanks Nan!).

Mom and Dad also put us to work so we could make a few extra dollars for our trip. So, for the last week and a half we've been weeding gardens, mending fences, cutting down small trees and big bushes, clearing gutters, installing ceiling fans, and much much more. It has left us very tired (see pic of Nan asleep on the deck). Our muscles have been tired and our eyes weary, but we've had the satisfaction of working hard and completing projects.

In the time we've had between projects we've been seeing friends and family. We even had some time to spend a day at an Ultimate tournament. We had a good time playing at Tulsa's annual Summer Solstice tournament. Nan came out to watch as I played with my old frisbee team. We had some rain early in the day but that gave way to los of sunshine and heat. It turned out to be a very beautiful day to be outside.

We also happened to be in town for Kevin's birthday. For those of you who don't know, Kevin turned 22 on June 30th. Happy Birthday, Kev! The Currys took us to a fancy dinner at Bone Fish for his birthday. Bob, Sheri, Carder (the Curry's summer house guest), Kevin, Lizzy (Kevin's girlfriend), Nan and myself all had a great time.

On Tuesday, Nan and I hopped in the car and headed to Kansas for a night to spend time with Nan's grandmother. She showed us Wichita in a whirlwind of family visits. We were there for a mere 19 hours but packed in enough family visits for a week. It was great to spend a little time with both of Nan's grandparents and various other family members. Thanks for all the great food and conversation! Then we were back in the car again headed back for to Tulsa.

Tonight we're headed to a Driller's game. They are having their 4th of July fireworks show after the game tonight. Tomorrow night we will be celebrating Poppy's (my Grandpa Lenora) birthday and having a cookout. We haven't heard anything new from the Peace Corps and are getting a little anxious. But I'm sure we'll be okay. On Saturday we'll leave Tulsa, bound for St. Louis to see Adam and Kate. Congratulations to those two, they just got engaged!

Goodbye for now,

Chris