Post Thanksgiving

Last month (November) the selected book was The Great Alone by Kristen Hannah. Set in Alaska in the 70s it was really well received and generated some really good discussion. I think it is safe to say that most of us agreed we could not be homesteaders! We discussed how it would be turned into a movie and who would play the leads. In October we read America for Beginners which I really enjoyed and I think most of the group enjoyed it as well. Mid-September my husband I drove across country. We first stopped in Ohio and visited Cuyahoga State Park and did some hiking. A beautiful park and the trails we were on were beautiful. We spent a day in Holmes county, populated by the Amish. We moved on to Cleveland and went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame which was just great! Both my husband and I really enjoyed it. Little did we know we were so close to the home of the Cleveland Browns NFL team and they had won their first game, in 2 years, the night before! We went to a Boston Red Sox- Cleveland Indians game that night and even though we were up high the seats were right behind home plate. We had an amazing view. Very nice ball park. We continued on to Chicago to see our daughter and attend her white coat ceremony for medical school. Then we drove west through Wisconsin to South Dakota. We viewed the statue Dignity in Chamberlain SD. It depicts a Native American woman. Very powerful.

We came upon two actually right out of Bonanza cattle round ups!! Wranglers, border collies, etc gathering the cattle together and moving them to another site. Pretty amazing.

We stopped at Custer State Park for the annual buffalo round-up. It was snowing and so cold..... but pretty cool to (finally) see all the buffalo being herded into the pens for counting, treatment etc.

We continued to Yellowstone National Park and spent 4 nights there. It was amazing. We saw a grizzly, loads of buffalo, trumpeter swans, deer, elk.

And we really only saw half the park. The last two nights it snowed. We then drove to the Grand Tetons and took the gondola to the top of one of the peaks- about 10,000 ft! The gondola can hold 100 people (even with snow wear and skis!). The views were amazing. We did stay in Jackson Hole but can honestly say it wasn't our favorite stop. We headed home. There is A LOT of wide open space and we were just dumbfounded by the openness. We stopped at the Jolly Green Giant statue, Wall Drug, the Badlands, Mt Rushmore- there is so much to see.