Monday night ... 9-15-08 Mt. Vernon, Illinois

Good evening to all!

Tonight is the last night on the road and we have bunked down here at Comfort Suites in Mt. Vernon. We left North Platte, NE this morning @ 8:30 am and by 12:30 or so we had rolled right through Iowa and landed in Missouri by 1:30pm. So I guess most of our day has been spent in MO. We have traveled a little over 700 mi. today.... so this means...600 0r so Tues. We may have saddle sores for sure! It is hard to believe that we have been ridin the ol dusty trails for 16 days now.

We started with the old west town of Fort Smith,AR where Judge Isaac Parker took care of all the outlaws...

Oklahoma... we breezed through the CowboyHall of Fame....

Texas... we stopped in at the Cadillac Ranch and saw 10 Caddy's with their noses to the ground....

New Mexico... we got our "Kicks on Rt 66" all the way to Sante Fe and then rolled right through the very busy city of Albuquerque...

Arizona... a drive through the scenic Oak Creek Canyon took us to the beautiful little town of Sedona where we took the Pink Jeep Tour and sat on a Vortex....back up through the canyon to Flagstaff and then. .... Grand Canyon National Park... where we saw morning's first light...

Utah's... Monument Valley with it's magnificent mesas and buttes surrounded by empty, sandy desert and known for all the cowboy movies and John Wayne... we also got a quick peek at Lake Powell before heading on to ....

Four Corners.... where we sat in 4 states at one time... UT...CO
AZ...NM

Utah also gave us Canyonlands National Park and Newspaper Rock ......Petroglyphs left by the Anasazi,Navajo and Anglo cultures and I just about forgot...Hole in the Rock! http://www.theholeintherock.com/ click here...

And finally... Wyoming... where in the magnificent Tetons... Eagles soar.... the Snake River flows ,bison and elk roam and moose and bear are sometimes hard to find... and then... there is Yellowstone... a magical place with many places still left for us to explore...

And... Montana... Glacier National Park.... beautiful alpine mountains, lakes, big horn sheep, mtn. goats and still more trails than anyone could ever cover... and Ann... a new friend made along the way...

It has been a great and wonderful journey... new trails made and old ones revisited... We have been blessed to have seen all these places and things and know that God has created them all.

Thanks for all your prayers during our travels and putting up with all of my ramblings...

See ya on down the trail!

The Trail Blazer's