July 16th-21st

The past week has been for relaxing and visiting family and friends in Harrow.

A few more firsts for Indira: riding on a lawnmower, swimming in a pool and the big one is that now she's sitting up on her own.

For the most part, Indira has been very happy when she meets a new people - except for Jeff. Not sure what happened there! Uncle David is a bit confused as to what exactly a baby is - but Indy and he seem to have bonded, nevertheless.

Today we are off to London to meet up with my kids and parents, and the rest of Indira's family in the Tillsonburg area.

July 15th

We finish our drive through Michigan and finally reach Harrow, Ontario where the first part of our journey comes to an end. We will be in the area for about a month visiting family and friends before we continue on our way to the east coast. I will add to this blog every now and then while we are here and will start it back up daily mid Aug. Hope you have enjoyed traveling with us so far and you will keep checking back every now and then to see what we are up to.

The pink marked on the map is the start of the second month to the date of July 15th. Ya had to take the beard off, didn't want to scare my mom.

July 13th & 14th

Both days are pretty much just driving the open road. We stop at Calamis, Iowa for the night of the 13th, and boy what a mistake that was. The price was great, at $12.00 a night with full service. Now we know why it was so cheap. The double set of train track that were about 75 yards away were busy all night, with about eight trains an hour. Plus it was the first real hot night and we all had to sleep in the upper bunk with the windows open. Ah, I was wondering were my beer was going, like father, like daughter.

The next day we finish Iowa, Illinois and Indiana. Indira needs to have a little rest so we decide to stop at one of the road side rest stops. When we pull in we see that they've put the rest stop right next to a cemetery, nice.... We stop just outside Niles, Michigan for the night. We check in for our last night on this part of our trip and I finally have a beach and a lake to swim in. I take my shirt off, empty my pockets and jump in with my shorts on, forget about looking for my bathing suit.

July 12th

Today is only a driving day. We leave Valentine, Nebraska and end our day in Sioux Falls, Iowa. Another state behind us.

Our excitement for the day is the stop at the Starbucks to catch up on the blog - and Indira sipping her first latte

July 10th

The drive has become boring as we head through the west part of Wyoming. We stop for gas and I see t-shirts for bike week in Sturgis. Asking around I find out bike week is in August, and the population grows from 4000 to 250,000 for the week. Since it's only an hour out of our way, we decide to head up there and check it out. We pass through Deadwood, which is primarily a Casino town, but they have certainly done some nice restoration work. In Sturgis, we stop at the local saloon, The Knuckle, and pick up a bike week shirt for Indy. Then, it's off to Rapid City and another Walmart night.

July 9th

A quick stop at the Cody fireworks factory, so I can grab a little something for later. It's a long, slow drive today going through the Black Mountains, hitting the peak of Powder River Pass at 9666 ft. We stop at Kaylee for the night, and our campground is right across the road from the local rodeo grounds. We head over to watch and as luck would have it, the cowboys and cowgirls are out tonight, showing off their sheep roping and bucking horse skills.

July 8th

Leaving the campground, we party company from the Warris'. Our plan is to do the upper part of the campground today. We stop at Mammoth Hot Springs, which seems to have dried up quite a bit over the last few years. We have a bite to eat in town, and then head to Tower Falls for a view of the falls.

We take the East way out of the park. People told us that the drive going west was the best way to/from Yellowstone, but I have to disagree. The drive east was absolutely stunning. We stop in Cody, Wyoming at the Walmart for the night. This lot has the most amount of RV's that we've seen to date - about 35!

July 7th

From the campground we plan to do the lower section of the park. We start with Upper and Lower Falls, just outside of Canyon Village. Onto the Mud Volcano, to see the boiling pits of mud, and a couple of buffaloroaming the area. On our way to West Thumb for lunch, we stop to photograph a buffalo just to the side of the road. A couple other Yellowstone-ers have gotten out of their vehicle for a picture and the buffalo heads towards them. They head back to their vehicle, but the buffalo walks right up to the side of our bus, close enough to rub up against it. The pools at West Thumb are so clear - a lovely place to walk around (aside from the obvious odour). Off to watch Ol' Faithful, which of course was pretty much right on time. It's pretty cool that they can predict the regularity of this geyser... however, I think I was expecting too much out of the display. On our way back to the campground, we make a few more stops, see the Fire lakes and the geyser erupting and find a swimming hole.