Warning: somewhat graphic detail of the the day today towards the end of this post. You may not want to read any further.

Well, we almost made it out of Indiana today. We’re close. We normally stay just over the border in Ohio around Bryan at a Ramada Inn that we’ve stayed in two years in a row but they did not have any pet rooms available tonight. Something about a “big group” coming in tonight. Maybe there’s a dog show around. Don’t know.

So we opted for the Ramada Inn in Angola, Indiana that we stayed at three years ago. It’s off the highway a bit, and even more so now as the road is closed and we had to detour six miles out of the way, and six more miles back. But, we’re here, the outdoor dog walking space is incredible and the room is nice and hopefully quieter than last night. Domino’s just delivered our Honolulu Hawaiian pizza to our room and we devoured it. YUM.

But what a night last night and what a day today.

That thunderstorm I talked about last night? Well, it was one seemingly continuous thunderstorm/s from 7:00 p.m. until 3:00 a.m. Every time I drifted off to sleep I was awakened by loud claps of thunder. Or by the rude people at the ice machine one door down from us. And the subsequent banging shut of their door. Rude.

And how about that stupid train? Twice it went by, blaring its horn. One time was not enough. It sounded like it was right next to the hotel (which we kind of noticed before but not like it sounded from the freakin third floor where we ended up).

Toss into that nightmare mix a cat who continually has to use the litter box and scratch the newspapers that I use around it and you have a pretty much sleepless night. I finally got up at 2:30 and tossed him in the crate (Sam) and put his crate in the bathroom and closed the door most of the way so I couldn’t hear him trying to get out of said crate.

Fast forward to a late start this morning by one hour (due to sleeping a bit later from lack of sleep from all the above), toss in the stop at the Best Buy in Coralville, Iowa to exchange my camera.

Which I decided not to do (exchange it that is but instead returned it for a refund). Why? We noticed that my camera that we had purchased two weeks ago was being sold for a reduced price from what we had paid for it. The helpful sales person told us that it was because Canon was releasing the newest version of the same camera in a few days. Since it featured a new auto-focus feature I opted to just return my new camera and get the newest Canon after we get home.

That took a good 45 minutes (combined with lunch at the Culver’s ... again YUM) out of the scheduled driving time.

Then once we were back on the road for about ten minutes, eBay decided to have diarrhea in her crate, so we pulled off. Again. While Rick was in the quick mart store at the gas station we had pulled off in to get some wipes after getting eBay cleaned up and settled back in to her crate, Sam had to join in the on the diarrhea in his crate.

At this point I swore the cats would stay home next year. Actually, I swore quite a lot.

One hour and 45 minutes now behind our usual time.

Chicago basically sucks. It took us two hours today in stop and go traffic when it normally takes 45 minutes to an hour to get through it. The temperature was 95 degrees. Thank God for air conditioning and the great truck that Big Red is.

Then as you know, we had to detour to get to this hotel.

We are glad to be settled and hopefully not thunder, people banging doors and getting ice at all hours, nor cats scratching in the cat litter box will keep us awake tonight.

I can’t tell you how glad I will be to be home. In my own house. In my own bed.

Good night from Angola (a really cute town as we learned from our detour through main street).

Tomorrow: Home Sweet Home!

(Apologizing in advance for any typos as I am so tired I can hardly see straight. It was so bizarre I had to write it down.) Sorry!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad at the cabin 8,650 feet above sea level

Location:N 400 E,LaGrange,United States

Here we are in Omaha. Well, technically we are in Council Bluffs, Iowa just over the river from Omaha. Of course we are experiencing a severe thunderstorm. So what’s new about that? I don’t think I’ve ever crossed the state of Nebraska without some kind of severe weather.

In fact, the very hotel we are in tonight was the same one where we had to huddle in the downstairs hallway during a tornado warning. No tornados tonight but maybe some hail in store.

We were lucky as we got out of the cabin earlier than usual this morning and on our way. It allowed us to get here, get the dogs walked and dash across the way to Hardee’s for hamburgers (which we brought back to the room) before the storm hit.

I have two dogs on the bed with me panting up their own storm. Remember those beds in those old motels with the beds that had the built-in vibrating massagers? That’s what it feel like right now to me. It’s a wonder I can even type.

At least we are safe inside tonight! Ah, Nebraska. You gotta love it. Or hate it.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad close to the land of OZ

I’m writing tonight as our last night here at the cabin. I’ve posted several blog entries today, so if you are interested, please read backward a bit to see them all. I guess I felt the need to catch up a bit more before we left.

This morning we took our coffee and walked down to Serenity Point (as we’ve named it.)




Note to self: Next time I want/need to enjoy some serenity, leave the dogs behind in the cabin.

We are as ready and packed as we can get tonight. We just made the last walk with the dogs down to the bottom and back. They all know that we are leaving tomorrow as they’ve watched the progress of packing up all day long. I would like to think that they are as ready as we are.

The hummingbirds are not happy with us as we just now took down the feeders. They are in a frenzy of sugar withdrawal. I feel bad for them.

I emptied the bird feeders and along with it, all the junk food that we did not eat. So, the beasties will be feeding on Cheez Doodles (better known as Cheeze Do-dos) and stale potato chips and Chex cereal.

I have to say that given the extreme fire danger here, I took some extra photos of the cabin in case I might not see it standing again. Don’t ever take anything for granted. Not in this wild country.

If not this fire that continues to chew away at all the beetle kill, another one might take it. You just don’t know.

Our time here was good. But we are ready to resume our normal lives again and pick the threads of our lives back up again on the other side of the country.

We’ll see you on the flip side! Thanks so much for joining us on our journey west. I hope you enjoyed your vacation!

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad at the cabin 8,650 feet above sea level

We just got back from visiting our neighbors Donna and Larry and giving them the remnants of our fridge that we won’t be using tonight and are unable to take home with us.

We were horrified to see this view on the way home. Granted, I am using a zoom lens, so this photo was taken at 75mm.




And here I zoomed to the max of the lens, 300mm.




We could actually see the smoke billowing up. I don’t like this at all! The winds are on our side, but still. It’s scary. There is so much fuel for this fire. So many beetle kill pines. Plus, it’s dry and windy with hardly any humidity. Not good fire fighting weather at all.

Donna and Larry were packing up some things precious to them that they don’t want to lose and are renting a storage unit in Laramie just in case. It’s something you have to think about up here. We are in fact thinking of taking an old clock home with us. Just in case.

I don’t think we or the cabin are in any danger but if the fire keeps increasing it would get too close for comfort.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad at the cabin 8,650 feet above sea level

And adorable! We have a huge population of both ground squirrels and their littler cousins, chipmunks.




They are pretty smart about gaining access to the two bird feeders we have out. This year every time I look out expecting to see birds in the feeders I see ground squirrels or chipmunks instead.

Amazingly, they can climb this pole!

Getting up is one thing, but getting down is not as easy as it would seem.




Our other bird feeder is surrounded by baby aspens. Since it’s impossible for them to climb up the pole and get into this feeder, they’ve learned to climb the little trees and take a flying leap! Rick finally got this in slow motion yesterday and here is the clip. Enjoy!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad at the cabin 8,650 feet above sea level