Just Like Old Home Week.

Before departing for Denver, we headed out to Wind Cave National Park where we took a tour of one of the caves. Within the park, there are 136 miles of discovered caves which ranks the caves 5th in the world. I took quite a few pictures within the cave...but they all look the same and honestly, my photography abilities don't do the cave any justice.  So instead, I will share with you this:

Afterwards, we headed out to Denver via a tour of the rest of the park where we saw bison, pronghorn deer and prairie dogs.  Since we decided to take the route through the park, as opposed to heading back to Custer, we needed to adjust our route and take a different highway.  About 40 minutes into the drive, we saw the route we were looking for, but it was labelled as a "Truck Route." We figured we would soon come upon the "Regular Route" and and were confident that we would soon see the "Welcome to Wyoming" sign.  Imagine our surprise when after about an hour, I pointed in a rather shocked voice "Hey, it's the Welcome to Nebraska sign." 

Overall our detour to Nebraska didn't put us too much out of our way.  We continued to head southwest and crossed into Wyoming just before Cheyenne. I will say this much for Nebraska.....the scenery is all the same.  For miles and miles.  The kids and I will be headed across the entire state on Monday next week as we make our way to Lincoln.  Should be fun!!

Since arriving in Denver, we have had a great time catching up with so many friends! The most noticeable change to everyone over the past 8 years has been the increase in our numbers!  There are lots of little [and bigger] kids now amongst the groups.

A reunion of the Green Mama Shakes.

The Shakelets.

It has been a lot of fun catching up with everyone about their lives, jobs and  families.  I know I have mentioned this fact before in this here blog, but in all cases it has been pure delight catching up with old friends. Given the ease with which we have picked up and chatted with friends, it almost seems that time has stood still. Everyone looks the same--wait, I think everyone looks even better! We sure made some good friends while we lived here, like Michael and Lisa:




Our thanks go out to them for hosting us for 5 days in Denver. And for letting us do our laundry!!



Fun Facts From Today:

Number of times a child asked me "Are we there yet?" = 14

Miles driven today = 410

Number of wrong turns = 1 (hello Nebraska!!)

Number of states traversed or visited to date = 8