It took us six days to travel from Minneapolis, MN to Spring Hill, TN.  We spent one-half day in Peoria, Illinois having the tires on the motorcycle replaced.  I had hoped to make it home without replacing them.  However, the back tire was completely bald, and the cord was showing through in one small place.  We arrived at my brother Jeff’s, house on Thursday and stayed until this morning visiting with Jeff, his wife Cookie, and Diana’s sister Carol.  We arrived home about 5:00 PM this afternoon.  We were gone 143 days, we traveled through 22 states and four Canadian provinces, and we rode the motorcycle 15,364 miles.  It is good to be home.

We left Calgary on Tuesday, August 2, and it took us three days to get to Winnipeg, Manitoba. We camped in a provincial park outside Manitoba for four nights. We went to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights one day and the Winnipeg Zoo one day. The Museum for Human Rights was a moving experience. Although ISIL is a daily reminder of how horrible some people can be to others, it is still sad to read about some of the historical events. When we left Winnipeg, we went to Grand Rapids, Minnesota, the home town of my very good friend from Viet Nam, Les Beach. Although, I have many good friends from Viet Nam, Les, Elmer “Doc” Parker, and Larry Martinez were my three best friends. Les and I stayed in touch, visited with each other and took two short vacations together before he was killed in a work related accident on July 4, 1999. We had dinner with his two remaining sisters, JoAn Beach and Delores Bretti Wednesday night. It was good to see them again, and we had a great evening. We are now in Minneapolis, but we are leaving tomorrow.

When we left Billings, we spent three days traveling to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. We camped four nights in Banff National Park and spent most of the days exploring the park. The City of Banff is cross between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, so we did not spend much time in town. We traveled to Calgary Friday and went to a Calgary Stampeders game Friday night. We are leaving Calgary tomorrow headed east, and we are starting to thinking about when we will be home.