Reflections on 2016… Part 3

  

With our annual physicals behind us and receiving good results we moved on to another new state for us, North Dakota. Even though we only spent 8 nights in North Dakota we sure enjoyed our brief stay there and with summer winding down we had to move on westward.

Best North Dakota Memories – Visiting the state capitol and its natural heritage center and the best was finally seeing the wildlife and scenery at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Worst North Dakota Memory – Hearing a loud crashing sound while driving the RV which turned out to be our closet rod breaking!!!

By this time it was already August and we were wanting to stay a month near Glacier National Park so we entered Montana and scooted across the state until arriving in Kalispell. No doubt this is one of our very favorite summer destinations. We spent a total of 38 nights in Montana.

Best Montana Memories – Hiking Glacier,Seeing Glacier, Experiencing all of Glacier National Park!!! Seeing the first snow on top of the peaks in Glacier. Discovering a gem of a place to see wildlife at Bison National Range. Visiting with former and new friends.

Worst Montana Memory – The only bad thing that happened to us was being unable to take the National Park ferry over to hike the Grinnell Glacier because it was either full or the weather would not cooperate. (metal note – make reservations early),

 

With summer quickly disappearing we wasted no time heading west. As a result we only spent a brief three nights in Idaho.

Best Idaho Memories – Visiting the Kootenai Falls and Swinging Bridge and hiking the Ross Cedar Trail.

Worst Idaho Memory – With only a three night stay we didn’t have time for any bad memories ;) other than it was chilly!

 

Reflections on 2016… Part 2

   

Our last new state to visit in the mid-western USA was Iowa. We really didn’t plan to spend much time there yet we were surprised at how much we enjoyed Iowa. By the time we left we were astonished that we spent 18 days there! Maybe we did so because we were finally into a more summer like weather pattern and the severe weather alerts were more infrequent.

Best Iowa Memories – Our visits to the University of Iowa and in particular the beautiful campus of Iowa State University. We saw yet another state capitol and happily met up with full timers Jane and John in their home state.

Worst Iowa Memory – While we loved visiting the city of Dubuque we were saddened in how much if the city is in need of refurbishing. Someone with deep pockets has a gold mine awaiting them there!

Over leaving Iowa we entered a familiar state, one we have visited before, Wisconsin. We spent 18 days in this beautiful state and would have stayed longer but we had our medical appointments scheduled in Minnesota.

Best Wisconsin Memories – We never realized how many RV friends we had from Wisconsin until we visited Madison and Green Bay. Seeing many of our friends was indeed the highlight to our revisit to this state but we also really enjoyed revisiting Lambeau Field.

Worst Wisconsin Memory – Another state without a bad memory. Our only complaint was the weather again but this time it was because it was pretty hot while we were visiting.

     

After Wisconsin we moved over to Minnesota for the next 11 nights. We had only been in Minnesota one other time and it was only to visit Duluth so we saw more of the state this time around. Our main reason to be there this year was to have our annual physicals at the Mayo Clinic.

Best Minnesota Memories – Urban hiking in Minneapolis and lucking into seeing the new Minnesota Vikings Football Stadium upon its grand opening.

Worst Minnesota Memory – Waiting for the results of a couple of skin biopsies for me and results from a polyp taken off of Sharon but at least they all turned out to be non-cancerous!!!