July 12 - Iowa, South Dakota, and Yellowstone National Park



Ken, Pat, Michelle, Jenn, Rose
George, Annabelle
The Miller family lives in Lenexa, Kansas.
We enjoyed a lovely BBQ lunch at Q39. 
Thank you Millers.

Pat and Ken
They’ve been friends since elementary 
school. Pat lives in Lenexa, Kansas.

The Heller crew
Wende, Abby, Brad, Ryan, Stewart, Linda, 
Jenn, Ken and Rose
They live in Olathe, Kansas.
Thank you Linda for lovely desserts at the Silo and 
Wende for the great tshirts! 

Mount Rushmore
South Dakota 

Iowa sights
Lots of corn and the church 
Ken attended as a youngster.

Yellowstone highlights 
We saw lots of bison.

Yellowstone - lots of geysers
Apparently more than half of the world’s 
geysers are located here.

More geysers 
The sulfur smell was strong at times.

Our current map. We don’t expect to get to
any additional states. We have visited a total of 36 states 
including Alaska. 

Montana scenery 

Screenshot from our RV Life app
The green dots are campgrounds where we stayed and
they are recognized by the app. The red dots are either
campgrounds not recognized by the app or other locations 
where we spent the night like at friends or 
on the side of the road.

South Dakota sights
That is not the Washington monument. 

We got to see our friend Shawna for a short visit. We 
met her in Soldotna and she and her husband 
Brian moved to South Dakota a few years ago.

Ken’s family friends Randy and Deb.
We enjoyed a visit with them in Essex, Iowa.

We enjoyed a visit with family friends
Diana, Karen, Theresa, Anna and Jeff 
in Essex, Iowa. They served us water in Alaska mugs :)

Ken, Judy, Dwight, Cassie, Baby Bo, and Dustin
Family friends in Essex, Iowa
We enjoyed a lovely visit in their new barn.

Matt, Janine and Ken
Classmates from elementary school.


Rose and Ken in Nyman, Iowa
Country church where Ken attended when he 
lived in Iowa.

It’s been a great week visiting with family and friends and Ken drove over 1,100 miles in 2 days. That’s a lot with the camper. 

In Iowa we visited many of Ken’s family and friends. Then we had 2 stops in Kansas to visit with Pat and family (Ken’s friend since 2nd grade) and Jenn’s cousins. It was so great to see everyone and spend some time with them. 

From there we headed to South Dakota. Shawna met us briefly on a work break. Yay. And then we settled in for the night in Black Hills after a visit to Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Rose was disappointed when Jenn told her that the faces were of men, no women, even though Roosevelt does sound like Rose. 

We spent the last 3 nights of the week in Yellowstone West, about 10 minutes from the west entrance of Yellowstone National Park. We felt blessed that we found 3 nights available at the KOA campground less than a month ago. We were fortunate to spend 2 days in the park seeing the geysers, mud pots, bison, rivers and more. It was very beautiful and reminded Jenn a bit of Yosemite. Rose loved the very kid friendly campground with a large jump pad and Gaga ball. It was relatively hot in the 90s.

Friday we headed to Hamilton, Montana where we will spend 3 nights visiting Ken’s first cousin Laura and family. Ken’s siblings will also be joining us. 

Thank you for the prayers for health and safety. ❤️

 

Comments

  1. Patty FralicJuly 12, 2024 at 10:30 PM

    So glad you were able to spend a little time with Shawna. 🙂

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousJuly 14, 2024 at 6:08 AM

      It was awesome to see them! I would have taken more time off and spent much longer with them, but they had a long drive that day, and needed to get back on the road.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousJuly 14, 2024 at 6:11 AM

      (My Google account won't sign me in to show my name for some odd reason -- Shawna)

      Delete
    3. JennJuly 19, 2024 at 8:58 PM

      Yes it was so great seeing Shawna but unfortunately we did have a long drive that day. We look forward to seeing her in Alaska hopefully soon!

      Delete
  2. AnonymousJuly 13, 2024 at 10:38 AM

    Anxious to hear all the details

    ReplyDelete

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