Wyoming

This is the Mitchell Corn Palace. The outside was cool but we were pretty disappointed with the inside. After seeing the ice hotel in Alaska where EVERYTHING is made from ice, right down to the drinking glasses, we decided that this tourist attraction would probably never see us again. It was on our way from MN to WY. The outside is all made from corn cobs but the inside is just a normal building without any corn, just facts. It was pretty cool that they could come up with such a thing but I thought the inside could use some creativity too.
This is the extent of our fun corn palace trip....Luke with one of those mannequin guys.
My parents friends the Morley's live in South Dakota on the river. They were nice enough to let us drop in and spend the night since they live at the half way point between Minneapolis and Cheyenne. This picture does not to a very good job showing their amazing house. It is beautiful and up on a hill overlooking the river. They have a waterfall in their side yard so when you are sitting out on the deck it sounds like it is the river. Not only did we get to stay in their beautiful home they cooked us a great buffalo steak dinner. Amazing is all we could say.
And of course we had to drive through the badlands in South Dakota
They always amaze me. It was a perfect day too.

Yeah!!!! I finally got to see Mount Rushmore!
Okay here is the deal. My family and I went on a trip to see this when we were much younger. We got there and it was so foggy we could not see a thing so we tried the next day and guess what....foggy again. It was kind of a bummer, I remember standing at the bottom of it and trying to picture what it would look like. Now I know!!!
Days after searching for a home we settled on the first one we went into. It was so discouraging. We lived in a hotel for a week in hopes that we would find a house in our price range that was not a total dump or south of the tracks. The first night we were here we just drove around and looked at houses that sounded nice but when we pulled up to 98% of them they were total dumps, a few were in junky trailer parks, and and one was an actual trailer. Here I thought I was being a good wife and found one that said it also had a spacious workshop. I called on it and the landlord said we could stop by anytime the next day since she lived right next door so I was pretty excited that Luke would like it since he would have his own man area. Work shop my butt, it was a plywood shed that was nailed to a trailer. I instantly had visions of the stereotypical trailer park trash and what Luke and I could turn into. And my imagination went crazy and that is when we curbed the idea of living south of the tracks. So then we were looking at houses in other areas of the town and had just as good of luck. Two of them had no dishwashers in the kitchens, one the bathtub was a nice graphite color but I am pretty sure that was only because it was old as Colonel Sanders (it used to be white) and last but not least we went in to the basement of one that was a possibility until we saw that there was moldy dog crap in the basement. Wonder how long that had been there? So we decided to settle on the apartment with no garage. I have not taken decent pictures of it yet but this is pretty much it. Two bedrooms, one bath, a couple ok size hall closets, tiny bedroom closets, a dinky laundry room, and not much of an entry way, BUT IT'S CLEAN : ) and after seeing those other crap holes we were more than happy to hand over the check and call this home.
Talk about random....So Luke and I were driving around town here in Cheyenne and have come across small fenced in areas with a TON of goats crammed in them? Finally we asked our old neighbors in Alaska since they used to live here and they said that it is pretty common, it is free food for the goats. Weird huh!

Luke's Birthday. I surprised him and scooped him a dish of ice cream in a plastic bowl and stuck a Asian spice scented votive candle on it since our household goods had not been shipped yet. I am so creative! He was holding back giggles... seriously, who puts a scented votive candle on ice cream?

Random photo. He is so handsome ;-)
Then we decided to celebrate our birthdays the right way...with Dairy Queen. The guy there looked at me very weird when I gave him my request for what to write on the cake. It reads "Happy Birthday Lukey Poo and Erma.
Oh, that tiny area behind us is our dining room, Ha Ha.

Then we flew out to Missouri to pick up my Honda. We stopped at our friends house Mark and Allison, they used to live right next to us up in AK. It was good to see them, we had SO much fun.
Then they busted out the slip and slide. This is Mark heading down.
I just thought y'all should know that right after this picture I could not stand just watching any more. I put on a suit and flew down it, well, not flew but kind of skidded down. It was like rubbing sandpaper all over since their yard is not dirt but sand. It kind of burned, I just looked at it as a great exfoliating opportunity! The best was right right after this, Mark came up to me with mud piled in his hands and covered me. We ended up face painting with the mud. I was so upset that I did not get a picture! Luke had it in his pocket, passed out!

On our way back to Cheyenne we drove through Kansas. For those of you who know me well I grew up watching the Wizard of Oz every day, sometimes multiple times a day. We stopped at the OZ house but they were closing so we were unable to take the tour, Totally Bummed : ( I did get a picture with the tin man though. Hopefully I get to make it there someday again.