We left Tammy and Danny in Bardstown today after our last lunch together.  It was tearful and sad that it was over but we left confidant that we will forever be the best of friends.  I know I have said this before, but they are great traveling companions.   We will always have these memories to share with each other.

The trip was 11,406 miles of pure delight.  It will be strange sleeping in our bed tonight without hearing the sounds of cars, trains, birds and other wildlife.  As I drove down the driveway to my house I couldn’t help thinking, I would miss a lot about this trip.  We would go through our day at night to pick out the things we thought you at home would love to hear. I will miss that. I thank all of you for the comments  and especially the prayers for our safe journey.  It will be good to see all our Model A friends again.

Everything at home was good.  Grass was cut and it looked just as I had left it.  Thanks to my family that had assured us before we left that everything would be taken care of.

We have driven hard today to get back into Kentucky.  We have enjoyed sharing stories along the way. We will all be home tomorrow barring no problems.

We do plan to write one last blog to let you know when we get home and our stops along the way.

We picked a very good Model A road today with lots of opportunity to stop and cool.  A first stop brought us upon Nathan Boone Homestead in Ash Grove, Mo.  Nathan Boone was the son of Daniel Boone, he spent much of his time as surveyor, hunter and soldier like his father.  It was very interesting but not the Boone Homestead I had visited 20 years ago, that Homestead was in Defiance, Mo.  A couple was tending the garden and gave us much more info about Nathan Boone and the Homestead.  We came away with a lot of knowledge about the Boone family history.

We stopped for lunch at the local diner, Willy B’s Diner.  It had a fifties theme and our Model A’s felt right at home. The blackberry cobbler was great.

Leaving Ash Grove we spotted the Gilmore octagonal barn (also called the round barn) which was built between 1898 and 1907, and is registered with the Historic Society.

We stopped in Mansfield, Mo. for the night only to find that 200 feet down the road was the Laura Ingals Homestead.  The museum had lots of items that were from her era. My memories of the Little House of the Prairie Tv series were all brought to mind.  Her only wish in life was to live to be ninety years old.  She reached that goal.

We are hoping we will be back in the state of KY tomorrow.

Our first stop today was Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park near Montrose, Co. We drove huffing and puffing 9,000 ft. straight up to the top rim of the Canyon.  We talked after the fact that we should have left our campers at the bottom of the hill.  The Canyon was called the “black” canyon because it is so deep, sheer, and narrow that very little sunlight can penetrate it and it is a beautiful sight to see.  It did not have the spectacular colors that the Grand Canyon has but it was truly awesome on its own.

We drove 257 miles closer to home today.  We are in Canon City,
Co. for the night.  We also climbed Monarch Mountain today, which was 11,321 ft.  That was a challenge but we made it to the top with
just two stops for water.

We have been driving for three days now through desert terrain, 3 digit temperatures and slow climbing mountains.  Today’s heat was unbearable but we did get through it thanks to a storm that brought us cooling winds and rain.  We drove 250 miles today before pulling over at a campground in Spanish Fork, Utah.  Even in the desert you can see things that you will not forget, like the Sevier lake that was dry, but you could see exactly were it had been by the salt deposit left on the ground.  A cool sight.  An early morning rainbow just before daybreak  in the distant sky, was a sight we had never seen before and will probable never see again.

Tomorrow we head for the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, with the desert behind us.  I can say this has been such a wild and crazy ride, we  just look forward everyday to see what adventure we are in for next, but at the end of the day we always say it was a good one.

As of tonight we have driven 9,499.

Left Turlock and Eric and his new family at 5:30 a.m. to beat the heat.  It was a good drive with not much traffic, and we seem to be rolling along.  It started to  heat up about noon, as we were crossing the Sierra Nevada mountain range.  We fought the heat and mountains  the rest of the way.  We had to stop several times on top of the mountains to cool the engines down and add water.   Snow was still seen on top of  the mountains with the temperature in the valley reaching 104 degrees.   We were so hot we decided to get another bag of ice at the next stop.  Here is where Elvis came in.  He was behind the counter and a dead ringer for the King, he even sang to us. The one time you meet an Elvis look alike and you have left your camera in the car.  The ice worked, it help get us cool for awhile.

We pulled over for the night in Fallon, NV.  The wind had started up and we are feeling much better under the trees, it even looks like rain.  We plan to get up at 5:00 a.m. in the morning and try to get ahead of the heat and a few more mountains to  climb.

We would like to thank Eric for taking his time to post all our pictures.  Tammy and I are good at posting one at a time but not multiples, so Eric said he would post them for us so all our friends could see them along with us.

Michael and I would like to thank all of you that congratulated us on our new Granddaughter.  She was the highlight of our trip.

Grandparents with Frances

Frances Eliza Akers was born today at 7:30 a.m. She is a beauty and well worth the wait for her to get here. We are very proud of her and the parents as well. As most of you know she is our first granddaughter and we were so glad to be here for her arrival.
Tammy and Danny have been seeing a lot of California while we are visiting Eric and his new family. They have been very patient to wait for us. I appreciate them very much and their very flexible nature.
The four of us will begin our journey back home Saturday morning. I am sure there will be many stops along the road and many more memories made.

We have finally arrived in Turlock to await the birth of our first Granddaughter. Frannie is taking her sweet time, so while we are waiting here Danny and Tammy are going to enjoy more scenery at Yosimite National Park. I am sure you will get pictures and blogs from them. I am having withdrawal pains. We four have been together since June 2. I am already missing them.
We had a very hot day of driving yesterday so we stopped early and waited to drive this morning while it was cool. It was 102 here today. Don’t know how we are driving home. Through the hot temperatures of Nevada or drive up north were it is cooler. We are leaning toward route 50, if we can find out how frequent gas stations are across Nevada. If any of you Model A’ers have driven across Nevada on Route 50 we would love to hear about gas opportunities, campgrounds and any other thoughts you have on the route.

We drove 176 miles from Florence, Oregon to Crescent City, Ca. We had a great morning in the camp site this morning cleaning our cars and campers out and getting organized again. We left the Oregon Dune country where everyone in the campground had a ATV to ride on the Sand Dunes, to the Redwoods of California.

Tomorrow we will drive through the Redwoods and enjoy all the scenery. We had really nice warm weather all day but our nights are cool. It will take us a while to get used to our Kentucky weather when we get home.

Every day we are met with something unique. Today it was very very strong winds as we were winding along the Columbia river on the Washington side of the River.

We had beautiful scenery to look at along the way, but the winds were so strong that the guys were tense from gripping the steering wheel. Michael decided he would try a new route tomorrow, after driving against the winds all day. We found a campsite at the start of route 97 going across the Columbia River to the Oregon Side. We talked to some of the local people today and they say it is the windsurfing capital of the USA, and the winds are normal. We saw Mt. Hood in the distance with its snow covered peak. It is the tallest mountain in Oregon.

It is so amazing to see so many signs of how the ice age influenced our landscape. We saw a beautiful canyon today that once was a great waterfall. Today it is Dry Falls and if it were running it would dwarf the Niagara Falls.

Tomorrow we are still driving toward the Oregon coastline, who knows what will be our next adventure.