Home Sweet Home (finally!)

So happy to be home again. We headed west to visit Shane's grandparents in North Dakota last week, and then spent Labor Day weekend at Kel's cabin near Brainerd. After three vacations in three weeks, I am ready to stay home for a weekend or 12!

This was my second trip though North Dakota. My first trip through the state was during a high school band trip, I was too busy chatting with friends and goofing off to notice the scenery, or lack thereof. I really didn't miss much! North Dakota is pretty flat, but that isn't what gets me. What I noticed most is that there aren't hardly any trees! Minnesota is just as flat at times, but we at least have tons of trees to cover up the flatness.

It was a wonderful vacation, we went out there with nothing planned, no expectations. Just relaxed and played poker with Donna and Allen. We did fit in a trip to Medora, to see Roosevelt National Park. That was fantastic! The southern section of park has a 32-mile driving loop through the badlands, with scenic views and lots of wildlife. We hit a traffic jam while in the park, a buffalo decided to go for a stroll right down the road for awhile. MAN they are huge!! We also saw tons of prairie dogs, I thought they were kinda cute, but Shane doesn't agree. And I have never seen so much wild sage in all my life. It smelled great!

Donna and Allen live in an itty-bitty town (8 people I think) in the SW corner, so at least it's the prettier part of the state. They have a nice spot of land with a couple gardens. We helped out by picking tons of cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, and plums. Oh wow, the mini-plums were sooooo good, I couldn't keep my hands off them! They taste just like full sized plums, but they are the size of large grapes. We picked three 5-gallon buckets full of plums and made most of it into plum juice for jam or jelly. I think for every 3 I put in the bucket, I put 2 in my mouth. I wasn't a very good plum-picker.

We came home with three small plum trees to plant in our yard, hopefully they do well out here. Shane planted on in our newly expanded front garden, and we finally got all the iris from New York planted, and our own plants split yesterday. Needless to say, we've been busy.

So anyways, here are some photos of our trip through the badlands. Joey has been a doll on each of these road trips, but I think he is just as happy to be home as we are. Poor Bran has spent two weeks outside and off leash, he looks darn skinny after all that exercise. He's been passed out on the couch or bed now for 3 days, I think we finally wore him out!