HAD A WONDERFUL TIME BUT GOOD TO BE HOME

     With the fire coming close to Yosemite, we feel fortunate we got to see what we did.  Hopefully the fire will be contained soon.  When they talk of areas that are close to being burned, we were in a lot of the areas.  Ironically as we drove through the areas that were very dry, we commented that it would be quite easy for a fire to start.  
      I have a few more pictures of when we were at Dave & Maxines'.

                                                          

      Tuesday morning we went to breakfast & then Dave drove us up further in the mountains and we did a couple geocaches.  The terrain was a little more difficult than Maxine & I wanted to attempt, so Dave & Kent climbed on up into the rocks and disappeared for awhile but then they emerged with the find.  Good going guys !    Maxine then joined them for the second cache.  I was feeling a bit light headed (we were up to 8,000 ft. in elevation) so I stayed back & waited for them to return.  Again they emerged victorious !



                                                    Kent & Dave looking for the cache

                                                                      We found it !

           After  finding the cache's, Dave took us on around the loop in the mountain.  Lots of beautiful scenery, things you don't see in Indiana.  
            We got back to the campground and got things around and we left Dave & Maxines at about 12 noon on Tuesday.   Our time was short but we had a good time.   Certainly look forward seeing you in December.

             We had to stop and take a picture with a cactus before we left the west.  I have no idea what kind of cactus this is but it's all we had to choose from.   This is the desert and it was HOT, it was good to get out of it.  We made sure we had enough fuel as there was no fuel until we got to Barstow which was almost 2 hours away.  
                                               
                                             

Driving through New Mexico the rock color was beautiful.

             
      Driving through Oklahoma we saw a strange sight and there were a lot of cars parked and walking back to the phenomenon.  This was right along old route 66 and back in a farmers field.  They were old cars buried halfway into the ground and cans & cans of spray paint just thrown on the ground.  Story I hear is the farmer owned a junk yard and he wanted to give the kids a place to do their graffiti on the old cars instead of on buildings or anything else where it doesn't belong.
Someone told me that they had seen this on YouTube.   I really can't verify that but could be.
                                           
                                                   

   
           We left Tuesday at 12 noon and we were at Sheila & Darrens' Friday at 4:00. Sheila had made supper for us which was very much appreciated.  Thank you Sheila & Darren.
                         
                                                    

             From there we left and headed home.  HOME !  We got home & found a Welcome Home sign placed there by Von & Jenny.  Thanks guys!  Wasn't expecting that.

                                  

                                         

  We have had a wonderful retirement trip, something we will never forget.  We could have stayed out even longer but it was time to come home.  Nick & Shelly took care of mowing our yard & keeping an eye on our place and picking up our mail.  We Literally could not have done this trip without their help.  Thank you so so much, you are super.

   The states and other countries we traveled were:  Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, S. Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Canada, British Columbia, Yukon, Alaska, Washington State, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri. 

  One statistic is we were out on the road for 66 days and we stayed in a RV park for 23 days and dry camped with no plug in services for 43 days.  I averaged out the cost of lodging & with all the dry camping we did lodging cost us an average of $11.57 per day.   Now if I could average the other costs down that low  our expenses would have been very good.     No matter what we had the trip of a lifetime.
Miles traveled:  11,937
Photos taken:  4100 (plus)   AND   lots & lots of video.

I guess I take a lot of pictures & videos so when we are not able to travel anymore we will have hours of entertainment of our traveling days. 


Thank you for following, I really enjoyed sharing our travels with you.
Check us out from time to time because since we are retired we do plan to travel as we can.

                                  


                                                          Until next time
                                                          Kent & Martha