Trip West - Home in Fla

 This was our last campsite of our trip west.  We are in Gold Head Branch State Park near Keystone Heights, Florida.

As we left the park on Friday July 6th to head home we saw these deer.  It was a nice way to end our camping trip.  We have seen a lot of animals on our trip.

We arrived home in the early afternoon to find everything just fine at home.  The grass had been mowed. Our son Bill and his family & a family friend did a great job at keeping the grass cut.  We got the camper unpacked, things put away, camper cleaned (washed the outside).  We have almost gotten back into everyday life in North Fort Myers.  We might do another trip in a couple of years??

Trip West - Zipline in Branson, MO

 These are videos of me and Tom doing a zipline at Branson, MO.  It was a lot of fun especially the drop off the tower to get down.  They take you up to the first tower in a four wheel type vehicle, you zip from one tower to the next and at the end you have to do a 100 foot drop off the tower to get down. That was a new experience for me to free fall off the tower.  That first step is a real breath taker. This was good, but not as good as the Zip Rider at Icy Strait Point, Alaska.  The top video is me on the zipline and the next one is Tom.

 The next video is my fall off the tower and Tom is  the next one.

 The bottom video is just us coming off the platform after we are done.

Trip West - Winding down coming home

 We have a map of the U.S. that we are placing the states on as we get to them.  I believe I am placing the Nebraska stamp on the map.  This is the Harlan County Dam & Lake campground at Alma, Nebraska.

Tom getting his grill ready to fix supper for us.

This is a very neat place.  It has 65,000 sq feet of displays from the Nebraska Prairie.  It was all displayed very well.  From the road does not look like much, but once inside you have a lot to see.

 This Buffalo is made from barbed wire.

 This is our site at Lucas Park on Wilson Lake, KS.  It was very hot and windy.  The only restroom showers were in the next section of the park. Not set up very well.   We only stayed one night here.  The next day it was 114 degrees near here.  We were in Kansas when it was the hottest state in the Union.

 

Pictures of turkeys at El Dorado State Park, KS.

 When we got to our place in Missouri near Branson, MO we decided to go to Lambert's Cafe.  Famous for not only their food, but they have hand tossed rolls, & I mean hand tossed.  See video below.  It is a great time and the food is very good, and they give you plenty of it.

Hurricane Creek campground on Barkley Lake.

While we were near Paducah, KY we got in touch with Roger & LaVira Anderson and spent the afternoon with them.  Had a good time seeing Paducah, but it was very hot there too!  We visited the Kentucky Dam (which is on the Tennessee River) and Barkley Dam (did not take pics of it) (which is on the Cumberland River.  The two lakes created by these dams forms the Land Between the Lakes.  This is a beautiful place, hope to come back and spend more time there.

We are in Georgia at Indian Springs State Park.

L

Trip West - More Custer SP

 More Buffalo with calves.

 Outside the campground we were staying at in Custer State Park, South Dakota.

 Me messing around, 'Great Explorer'

 Pictures of Wind Cave and Jewel Cave.

 Our campsite at Grace Coolidge campground in Custer SP.

 Burros at the park.

Groundhogs were fun to watch.

 We drove over to Deadwood, South Dakota.  On the way we took the Needles Highway within the park, and it was a beautiful drive, narrow, winding road.

We heard about the Balanced Rock in Arches National Park in Utah, but not about this one. Looks pretty balanced to me, at least it did not fall while we were there.

This is a beautiful lake on the Needles Highway.

 Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried.

We also drove up to Mount Roosevelt to see the FriendshipTower and have lunch. This is one of the places off the beaten path, but it was neat to see.  I had never heard of this place.

 Can you believe it?  Linda acting up on her way to the tower.

 On the way back in to the park, we came across these Big Horn Sheep sitting on some rocks beside the road. Linda took some good pictures, but to me they look like stone.  Beautiful creatures.

I will post more later. We are in Kansas, but I would rather be in OZ, it is windy and hot here. Over 100 degrees today.  Well we are heading east and south, making our way back home.