LET'S PLAY CATCH-UP!!!

Hi!  Sorry, I haven't gotten back to you all, but since I got back to North Carolina, I have been so busy working and cleaning, I have actually been too tired to write!  Well, we left off in Mt. Rushmore.  From there I went to Overland Park, KS where my nephew and his family welcomed me with open arms.  Jimmy took me to play golf, but we both played terribly.  However, it didn't dampen the fun!! 

And, speaking of golf clubs, I have had the greatest thing happen to me.  Before leaving NC for my trek, I purchased a set of golf clubs.  I really wanted to get Adams V3s because I was told they were the newest and best.  However, Dick's Sporting Goods did not carry them, and the salesman assured me that the Tight Lies would be just as good.  Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!  I played with them all the way across the country and it was like hitting with dead clubs.  So, while in Reno, I wrote to the president of Adams, explained my plight, and asked if I could send them back the Tight Lies and pay the difference for the V3s.  Surprise, surprise, surprise.  Tomorrow, my new V3s will arrive at Dick's and I get to trade in the Tight Lies even up!  Now that is GREAT customer service.  I can hardly wait to try them out.  It is one of the best things that happened this year.  That, of course, is not counting everyone who has just been delightful to me!

Driving from Mt. Rushmore to Overland Park was an adventure because of all the flooding in that part of the country.  A 9 hour drive took about 13 hours due to all of the detours.  It was beautiful, though, when I got into Kansas and Missouri - all green and rolling hills!

Now, I will be in North Carolina for a while and see how this works out.  The kids will be going to Europe for a month in November and I will be taking care of business.  So these next couple of months will be a great test of whether to relocate here.  We'll certainly see!

Gina stayed here while I went across the country so she wouldn't be confused or stressed and when I got back, she was quite miffed with me.  She is sleeping on my head again, so I think she has forgiven me.

It is so difficult to believe that Mike has been gone a year!  It has just left such a terrible, terrible void in my life.  Now I know how his mother felt.  She told me that when she died, the first thing she was going to do was slap her husband's face for leaving her!!  Perhaps that is not such a bad idea!!  Thanks for checking.  Ricci

CODY WYOMING

It is so much fun when you see someone you have not seen in 25 years and you pick up a conversation like you had just been at a pajama party a few weeks ago!!  Jeanette and Joe have no changed - they remain the same nice people they were when I fixed them up in 1957!  Cody is very pretty - wide open spaces as written about in cowboy songs!!  The drive from Reno was through another set of mountains and, honestly, the mountains are all looking the same - only some still have snow!  I had to come through Yellowstone National Park, which is beautiful - even had "buffalo roaming" on the highway.  That is kind of scary because they are really, really big.  However, a million other people were either driving through Yellowstone or looking for a campsite because it took over an hour to go 10 miles!!   When I got to the sign that said "Welcome to Cody", I called Jeanette to say according to the gps, I would be there in about an hour.  I left the message on her answering machine.  As soon as she came back into the house, she called me wondering how I could be an hour away since Cody is only 6 miles wide.  (You know, it's hell to get old!!)  I forgot that I had come back through another time zone and unlike my cell phone, my car clock does not change automatically.  So, the gps was giving me the correct time, but my auto clock was still on Reno time.  So, I was actually about a minute and a half from her.  Anyway, I got there, we had great visit - and I was off again.  Heading toward starting a life.  Thanks for checking.  Ricci