Great Adventures with Bob, Beth & Toby

 Blog post #29 I'm not sure who is still reading these posts, but thank you to those who are!  I did this blog so that friends, family, and my students could keep up with our travels.  I felt like I was taking you along on the road with us.  I wasn't really sure anyone would be interested in reading it, so a real heart-felt THANKS for following along!  Sorry that it was a problem for many of you that wanted to make comments.  Not sure why it didn't work for most people.   One last thing to talk about.  Before we left, Bob heard about an App that would tell you some weird, interesting, or strange sites around your location.  The App is called Atlas Obscura.  We used it many times along the way finding obscure and interesting sites to break up our drives.  I thought I'd show you some of those in my last post. The Cementiscope in Norfolk, VA - look in one end and see a kaleidoscope view of the person looking in the other end...

 Blog post #28 Some photos of our fantastic Toby!  This could have been a very different trip had he not been such a cooperative little guy.  He's back home and back to his ways of sleeping most of the day after this great adventure!  What a trooper! The indespensible stroller!    He like when there were couches he could get up on! One of our best hikes with Toby at Hovenweep National Monument. He spent quite a bit of time in this car seat! He liked being up on the hotel beds...not to sleep though, we lugged the crate in each stay. Looking out over Canyon de Chelly At the condo in Oro Valley. In his raincoat on one of the rain days on the way home! At Bob's former house in Beaumont...wanted to go in!! Picked up this cat toy along the way from my sister's cats Rosie and Caesar! Back home in his usual perch on our couch!

 Blog post #27 We made it home on Monday December 4th ...7800+ miles, 52 days and 22 states later!   We are in awe of what a wonderful trip this was .  We had some rain on the way back home, but that was the first significant rain since the day we left.  In all those miles, we were not stuck in a single traffic jam!  Our car held up perfectly especially in the middle of nowhere (and we were there quite a few times!) when there wouldn't have been any conceivable way to get assistance.  I collected my 49th state (Oklahoma) and now Bob and I have just North Dakota to finish off having been in all 50 states!  We were welcomed by our family and friends and had lovely stays in hotels and especially some great AirBnb's.  None of us (including Toby) got sick or needed any kind of urgent care.  It was really quite remarkable and I'm in awe and full of gratitude to God for His protection and care for us.   St. Louis...we drove through the dow...

 Blog post #26 Well as they say, "all good things must come to an end".  We were sad to leave, but we started back on the road on Wednesday Nov 29th.  Our route would take us to a couple of sites we still wanted to see.  One was Pistachioland in Alamogorda, New Mexico.  I saw this place  back in the summer  on a list of off-the-beaten-path sites in every state.  It's home to the World's Larges Pistachio (in case you were wondering where that was)  We didn't get to it the first time through NM, but made time for it on our return.   Had to have the homemade pistachio ice cream, even though I don't really like it. The other place we wanted to stop was Pawhuska, Oklahoma.  We saw the movie Killers of the Flower Moon when we were in Tucson with the kids.  It is a movie about the killings of Osage Native Americans who had become millionaires after oil was found on their land in the 1920's.  It was quite a devastating story...