The reluctant blogger has returned.  We are currently in Springfield IL after a terrible month of trying to help my mother and her husband who is 90 and failing .  What a waste of time.  It's time to let these  geezers be on their own for awhile, just like they are demanding.  After all, we are plotting to put them in a nursing home, take over their assets and spend their money.  Yeah. Right.

Enough of the downer stuff.

We have had a pleasant summer, after Florida traveling to Georgia to visit Paulie's cousin, into Indiana to check out the Thousand Trails parks there, and visiting the eastern side of Michigan and Lake Huron.  We then attended a family gathering in the Chicago area and then headed to Iowa to visit another one of Paul's cousins.  We stayed in the Amana Colonies and had a nice couple of days to revisit some of the places we saw a couple of years ago.  Then we were off to Sioux Falls SD to do our change of address stuff, get our driver's licenses and other mundane stuff.  After Sioux Falls, we headed west to Mitchell SD and saw the infamous Corn Palace.  We also stopped at several popular places such as the world's largest truck stop, where we left some of our tourist dollars like most everyone else.  Wahl Drug was also on the list and we were not very impressed, however I will confess that they have the best handmade chocolate donuts I have had since I was a kid in Chicago from the Polish bakery.  We landed in the Badlands and stayed about three days.  The first time we saw the rock formations, we were awestruck.  By day three, it was monotonous.  We decided to continue west to see Mt. Rushmore.  We did a 12 hour tour which included all you can eat cowboy pancakes, all the sites like the Rushmore Monument, and of course, Crazy Horse.  We had lunch at a Lodge in the State Park, and for the first time, we had bison meat prepared in a delish stew.  Very tasty, but I would not go out of my way to have it again...well, maybe a burger.  From SD, we headed back east, heading for Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin.  Door County is a great place and we had some time to kill.  Had a nice time, but the place is totally outrageous in regards to prices.  A hot dog will cost you about $6...yeah, right.  After the frantic phone call from Springfield, we headed south making the trip in 9 hours of bumper to bumper traffic.  Female geezer sprained ankle, male geezer was acting off his nut.  In addition geezer husband had been scheduled for some type of heart "procedure" which both geezers insisted that male geezer must have.  Paulie kindly agreed to stay with the geezers so my trip to Cancun with my sisters would not have to be cancelled.  The trip deserves a post on it's own, but  suffice to say it was beautiful, very hot and I am truly glad that I never had a teenage daughter. I doubt I shall ever write that post to protect the innocent.

It is now the Labor Day weekend and we are getting to pack up and head to Goshen for the Escapee's Rally.  We will be early arrivals which means getting there on Friday the 10th. 
later,
dennise