Finally Headed to the Northwestern USA!

 Today is June 29^th and after a lot of unfortunate events, we were finally able to hit the road on June 26^th for our long-planned trip across the northwest USA.  The refrigerator is fixed after 6 months of dealing with it.  Bailey is healthy again after two infections and possibly ingesting some of my medications, and John’s floater in his eye did not involve a retinal tear.  I, however, am nursing a nasty pulled back muscle but hopefully it will resolve itself soon.  Fortunately, I have some muscle relaxers, pain patches and a few back braces to pick from thanks to John being an orthotist!  I also have a 60 minute massage scheduled in Billings, MT.

Our first night was in Salina, Kansas in a nice KOA.  A small storm passed over that evening with some pretty good wind but nothing to worry about.  Then the tornado warnings went off telling us to take cover.  We quickly checked our weather apps and listened to the weather radio to find that a tornado had been spotted but it was just SE of us and headed away from us.  Thank goodness.  I guess the big gusts of wind we had just experienced were part of that storm.

Our second night was in Ogallala, NE in a small RV park next to the interstate.  Although quite small, it was very clean and well kept.  They even had storm shelters in the restrooms.  The owner was very nice.  That evening more severe storms were headed our way and thankfully the worst of them went north of us.  God has been good to us with weather.

We are now in Casper, WY and stopped for two nights to get a break.  With my back problems, John has done all the driving for the past two days and done a great job.  We traveled for about six hours each of those days and he hung in there very well.  He needs the break too!

The scenery, while driving, was pretty.  There was so much farm land with lots of different colors of  golden browns and various shades of green.  As we approached the foothills of the mountains there were interesting rock formations rising out of the ground and eventually the bigger mountains appeared in the distance.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell if what we are seeing are mountains or cloud formations on the horizon.  I love the mountains.

Today we checked out Caspar Mountain County Park and Garden Creek Waterfall just outside Casper.  The park was way up in Caspar Mountain and very pretty.  It was full of tall pines and the view was fabulous.  You could see for miles.  The waterfall was also very pretty.  It involved a short walk up to a viewing area.  There were lots of hiking trails in that area as well but with my back problems it wasn’t a good idea to spend time on them.

Tomorrow we pull out and head north to Billings, MT.