It's Been a Great Summer!!

   Summer is over for 2013 and with that, we have left Wyoming! It's been a great summer for us here in the wild west! We have thoroughly enjoyed traveling in this beautiful land, full of varied landscapes and wonderful folks! We hope to return again next year to explore the mountains and meet new friends.
 

 During our summer schedule, working for Southeast Publications, in  Wyoming, we took some off the beaten path drives on the weekends and found great shots like this one just outside of Douglas, Wy.

We also stopped at the rest area and exit to Curt Gowdy State Park, west of Cheyenne on the way to Laramie, Wy., to find this is the highest point on Hwy. 80 at over 10,000 ft.. It is also a nice tribute to President Lincoln!                                                                                                                                Curt Gowdy (famous sports caster) State Park is a beautifully rugged recreation  and campground area known nationally for some of the best mountain bike trails anywhere, which also contains resavoirs that feed Cheyenne, the capital of Wyoming's water supply. Emmy wasn't real happy when we read her the sign that said no swimming and no pets allowed in the water!

 We were fortunate to have a private guided tour of the new, over $1 mil., Visitors Center not open to the public yet, by Bill Conner (pictured), Superintendent of CGSP, who was instrumental in designing the very environmentally friendly, beautiful building! Using solar power for lighting and well operation for water supply and filtration, heating and all the massive timbers used in construction were harvested from the CGSP. This is a very impressive Center that folks traveling nearby should not miss! Funding for construction was made possible, in part, by sizable donations from Bass Pro Shops we were told, as Curt Gowdy was instrumental in the beginning stages of the sports company.
Bill is very proud of the facility, understandably so, and is anxious for it's scheduled October 2013 Grand Opening! There are over 120 sites, some with electric and water and can accommodate large rigs, with wonderful views of the resavoirs and rolling hillsides.

In other parts of this great country!

We got some cool pics of the kids!!

Before leaving Wyoming, we had a couple days before we had to be in Nebraska for our next jobs and thought we would go down into Colorado to the Rocky Mtn. Nat'l Park as we had never been there before and thought that would be neat to see. Well, we found out there had been another park in Cheyenne that had not been finished and Southeast Pub. wanted to know if we could finish the job while we were there and we said sure! It happened to be F.E. Warren Air Force Base Fam Camp! We had never done a Military Base before and we were kind of excited to try it! Soon after we got cleared  in, ID checks and pics for temporary passes, it began to rain and rain it did! Somewhere near 9-10" when all was said and done! Of course, you've all heard about the disaster that followed about 75 miles south in the Denver area with all the terrible flooding that took lives and left thousands homeless and many roads and bridges destroyed that could take years to rebuild back to original! Our thoughts and prayers go out to you all impacted by the devastation! The Rocky Mtn. Nat'l Park I spoke of earlier is right in that area west of Denver and that is where ole' Bigfoot would have had us if we hadn't have taken that extra job, number four for us, in Cheyenne! The good Lord, and Martha & Marge (mothers) were watching out for us that day!

 After we were finished with Warren AFB, we headed east to Sidney, Ne., to Cabelas National Headquarters where they have a small, but very nice and clean campground for a few days of R & R. There is a Cabelas retail store there and their large distribution center. It is a good stop on I-80 with easy access on & off the highway. I didn't take any pics of the store because you all have seen about a hunert Cabelas, but Deb thought the entrance way deserved a couple shots as we walked over to a real nice steakhouse, can't remember the name, but very good even if a little pricey.
 
We left there on Sunday to Grand Island, Ne., to do a KOA campground. Grand Island is a city of about 45K people and is a nice clean mid-western town with alot of industry and very low unemployment rate (3.6%)! One of the factories peaked my interest and we decided to tour it on one of our overworked (haha) days of marketing the area. Hornady Ammunition Plant is the place we decided to see and we were glad we did! We don't usually tour factories as we travel, but we've been thinking it might be something we have been missing and I'm glad we didn't miss this one!

As we entered the facility, we were surprised to see in the entrance way, several dozen, maybe a hundred of full body and head mounts of every breed of animal you could imagine! Now I'm sure all the anti-gunners out here will be taken back by all of this, and that is their prerogative, I suppose, but this is the private collection of Joyce Hornady, founder of Hornady Ammunition, and it is his right to display his property as he sees fit! Anyway, now that I'm down off my soapbox, the folks there are very customer oriented and adhere  to very strict guidelines for precision and accuracy, with continuos testing during production in the 250 yard underground soundproof tunnel ensures ten shots in the same hole of the target as has always been Mr. Hornady's promise to his customers and still is today! We were again afforded a private tour of the manufacturing facility after a brief introduction of the company's history, but no photos were allowed inside. Deb and I thoroughly enjoyed the 45 minute tour and purchased a couple of souvenirs, I bought a really nice leather sling for my rifles and came out of the production area about 100 lbs. heavier than I went in, but they will never miss a few 9MM rounds and that will be yours and my little secret, OK ;) 

We are leaving Grand Island on Sunday Sept. 29, but even though the weather is starting to change, we are actually heading north, instead of south, 150 miles to just across the South Dakota boarder to Yankton, SD for a new KOA campground on the Missouri River. Hopefully we will dig the fishing poles out and try to catch our dinner some evening like Lewis and Clark did when they traveled through that part of the country years ago!

Sorry so long winded on this one, but wanted to get ya'll caught up!

SEE YOU SOON!!

Russ & Deb & EMMY!