Greetings from Kingsport, Tennesee.........................

After 81 days,12,916 miles,1821 photographs, and too many incredible memories to count, the Wee RV rolled into Kingsport last night. The end of a journey like this is always a bitter sweet time when it is good to be home, yet sad to trade those wide open spaces for "real world" enclosures. Ralph Waldo Emerson said in one of his essays, "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not." Hopefully we brought back more than a little beauty to our "real world" enclosures. 

Before I close I'll share some of the last photos of the unique Lambert's Throwed Roll Cafe in Sikeston, MO where we ate lunch. It reminded me of Dobyns-Bennett cafeteria in that when you raised your hand the waiter threw a hot roll to you (or at you) from across the room! Bill was quick enough to grab his roll as it banked off the wall above him so I decided it would be safer to let him catch mine, too.

We spent our last night out camping at Land Between the Lakes near Paducah, KY, in probably the prettiest campground I've ever seen. There are 378 great campsites on Barkley Lake and Kentucky Lake and we had almost the entire place to ourselves for a final bike ride, campfire, and sunset. 

This area is the largest inland
peninsula in the United States 

Going.......

Gone!

In closing, we are truly thankful for another summer of good health to be able to make our trek to Alaska, for so many miles of safe travel, for some great new friends we met along the way, and for awesome family and friends like you who took time to check our blog, send encouraging comments, and help pray us safely home. We are so blessed!

Greetings from Springfield, Missouri........

We said good-bye to our dear friends at Gros Ventre Campground after work Friday and headed east. We have stopped for the night at a KOA campground out in the Missouri countryside and officially ticked off 1341 miles of our trip back home. Crossing the US heartland is always our least favorite part of the journey, but after several days of temperatures in the upper 20's and 30's in the Tetons, I will admit that this time both of us were more than ready to exchange winter coats for t-shirts, roll down the windows, and enjoy the warm Kansas and Missouri sunshine.

Photos from the last few days definitely did not capture anything to compare to the incredible scenery from the first part of our trip, but several were unique enough to make the "cut" for this post.....

Wild Bill and moose along the
 sculpture walk at National Museum
of Wildlife Art before leaving Jackson Hole.

Sunset near Togwotee Pass as we left

Cool cowboy town we passed through

Unfortunately this place and almost
 everything else in town was out of business

Interesting point near Lebanon, Kansas

It was surprising to discover
at the center of the USA this
wee prayer chapel and three
crosses in the adjoining field.
Encouraging that the Supreme
Court or some left wing group
hasn't attempted to remove
them!

Sign on Kansas gas station that perfectly
describes our location today!

Greetings  from Jackson Hole, WY as we begin the count down to our return to Tennessee........

We approach our final week of work at Gros Ventre Campground with mixed emotions. This month has been a wonderful grand finale to our summer Alaskan adventure and we will surely miss our super co-workers and these glorious Rocky Mountains. However, as the temperatures here have dropped significantly we look forward to a fabulous fall in Tennessee and maybe even some end of season garden veggies still available at the farmer's market.

Thanks to our generous
boss, Steve, we have been off
every Sunday and able to
worship at First Bapt. Jackson WY

Cool weather has brought moose into
campground every day. 

Teton sunset from our "front yard"
at Gros Ventre campground

Rainbow outside campground office.
Longtime locals says we've had
most rain this year since 1980's.

  Greetings once again from the library in Jackson, WY......

What a grand adventure we had on our weekend off as we traveled through the east gate of Yellowstone NP over to Cody, WY and on to Red Lodge, MT to drive the famous Beartooth Highway that ends in Cooke City, the northeast entrance to Yellowstone. Heralded as one of the most scenic drives in the United States, the Beartooth Highway, a National Scenic Byways All-American Road, features breathtaking views of the Absaroka and Beartooth Mountains, and open high alpine plateaus dotted with countless glacial lakes, forested valleys, waterfalls and wildlife.The Beartooth Hwy passes through what is known today as the Beartooth Corridor. Surrounded by the Custer, Gallatin, and Shoshone National Forests, traveling parallel to the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, and abutting Yellowstone National Park, the Highway sits in a million-plus acre wilderness. It is one of the highest and most rugged areas in the lower 48 states, with 20 peaks reaching over 12,000 feet in elevation. In the surrounding mountains, glaciers are found on the north flank of nearly every mountain peak over 11,500 feet high. The Road itself is the highest elevation highway in Wyoming (10,947 feet) and Montana (10,350 feet), and is the highest elevation highway in the Northern Rockies. It was a cold, rainy weekend, but even with fog and clouds blocking some of the views, that route probably wins most spectacular of all we've seen this summer. The following photos don't even begin to capture the awesomeness of that route which is a definite for your bucket list!

After crossing east side of Yellowstone we
wove in and out of Wyoming and Montana
several times along our route.

 

Some Yellowstone scenes

After only a month working in the
park I know the feeling!

It was 39 degrees and spitting snow here!

Brave cows!

In these next three photos would you believe we were actually standing on a bridge looking down into the river?

This is the Sunlight Creek Bridge Wyoming's highest elevation bridge

We camped at West Yellowstone on
way back to Jackson.

Wild flowers were still abundant
despite cooler temperatures.

Beautiful route from Cody getting
to Beartooth Hwy

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Tribe used
this route attempting to escape US Calvary
and made his famous declaration,
"From where the sun now stands I will
fight no more forever."

Amen!

Greetings from Teton County Library in Jackson, WY..........

Wi-Fi has been a bit sketchy at the campground so we scheduled a stop at this awesome library after church to catch up on some computer "business". This week has flown by with more fantastic weather and a bit of a fall feel in the air. We love the chilly mornings, T-shirt afternoons, and jacket evenings. Our days off are Saturday and Sunday so yesterday we took a long bike ride and then met former campground workmates, Howard & Karen, for pizza at Leek's Marina, a cool little dive on the shore of beautiful Jackson Lake. We got to visit in their luxurious new 5th-wheel RV complete with fireplace and central vacuum system. WOW! An evening spent in that palatial RV made our Wee RV feel really WEE indeed. Tonight we're going with our boss and his wife, Steve & Doris, to the Bar J Chuck Wagon western dinner theater.Their musical show is always excellent so we're looking forward to that outing. Only a few photos to share today as new photo opportunities were limited this week.

Picturesque trail at String Lake
beckons bikers onward

Sunsets over the Tetons never cease
 to dazzle and amaze us.

Jackson Lake Dam controls the Snake
River which serves as a major water
source for all those Idaho potato fields.
Folks in these parts take water rights
 seriously!

Wild Bill agreed to pose with his teddy bear.

We are planning a road trip next weekend out the east entrance of Yellowstone over to Cody, WY and then through the Bear Tooth Pass and on to Red Lodge, MT.  Wildlife and beautiful scenery abound in that area so hopefully we'll have some new photos to share next post.