We spent one night in a private campground in Antigonish, NS.  We stayed at the same campground on July 3, 2001.  I woke up on July 4, 2001 with my right arm hurting so bad I did not think I could stand it, and it still has not stopped hurting.

After Antigonish, we spent three nights in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.  From there we took an overnight ferry from North Sydney, Nova Scotia to Port aux Basques, Newfoundland.  We spent last night in a provincial park.  We are currently in Stephenville, NL.

Stephenville was a small village prior to 1941 when the U.S. Army built an air base to use during World War II.  During construction of the base, Stephenville’s population grew seven-fold.  It is now a town of about 6,500 that services a population of about 25,000.  The people have fondness for the United States.  However, I could not find anyone that would trade us Justin Trudeau for Donald Trump.

We are going to St. Barbe, Newfoundland to take the ferry to Labrador.  I am not sure when we will get to Newfoundland, but we are getting into sparsely populated areas so we may not have Internet access for several days.

We arrived in Yarmouth, NS Thursday, July 6 about 11:30 PM.  We spent the night in Yarmouth in a wonderful little motor court.  On Friday, we rode the Lighthouse Route along the coast to Liverpool where we spent the night.  Yesterday, we rode on to Halifax, NS, the largest city in Nova Scotia.  We are staying in a dorm room at Dalhousie University.  I have an appointment to get tires on the motorcycle tomorrow, and then we are heading to Cape Breton and the Cabot Trail.

We left Weaverville Thursday, June 29, and we are currently in Hartford, Connecticut. We are staying in Hartford until tomorrow, July 5. Later this week, we plan to take a ferry from Portland, Maine to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. We have done much of our traveling on Interstates 81 and 84. We prefer to travel on back roads, but often the back roads in the northeast congested, and we do not want to take too long getting to Canada. Since this is the July 4th holiday period, the campgrounds have been mostly full; therefore, we have had to stay in motels four out of six nights. We hope that we will be able to camp most nights once we reach Canada.

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.

After we left Seattle, we spent three nights camping in Gifford Pinchot National Forest near Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. Fortunately, the weather was clear and we had a good view of both mountains. We are now in Billings visiting with Robert Dean, my company commander in Viet Nam. He was one of the youngest company commanders during the Viet Nam war and unquestionably the very best. I have no doubt that his actions saved many of our lives. Unfortunately, he still carries the military gene and he insisted that as a former soldier in his company and a current house guest that I be clean shaven. The pictures show the result. We are leaving tomorrow headed to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada.

July 11 – Seattle

When we left Weaverville, CA, we went to the Avenue of the Giants to see the giant coastal Redwoods. We then went to Seattle where we spent two nights before we went on an Alaska cruise. The cruise left Seattle July 3 and returned yesterday, Sunday, July 10. The best part of the cruise was seeing the Hubbard Glacier. While we were watching it, several large chucks of ice broke off the glacier creating a spectacular scene. Yesterday afternoon, we went to see the Seattle Storm play the Indiana Fever. After the game we went to a reception for one of my all-time favorite athletes, Tamika Catchings. We are leaving Seattle tomorrow and heading east, but we do not know our destination.

We left Reno Tuesday, June 21 and went to Oroville, California. We spent four nights with my good friend and Viet Nam buddy, John Estrada, his wife, Diana, and his son, Phillip. It was a great visit. Thanks for putting us up and putting up with us. We left Oroville this morning and are currently in Weaverville, California. We are going to the coast to drive through Avenue of the Giants and possibly on to Crater Lake National Park.

We flew from Fresno, California to Asheville on Tuesday, June 7. It was supposed to take about 12 hours from Fresno to Asheville, but our first flight was delayed and we missed our connecting flight. We spent Tuesday night and much of Wednesday in the Chicago Airport. We returned to Weaverville so we could attend my sister’s and brother-in-law’s fiftieth wedding anniversary. It was worth the trip. In addition to seeing the happy couple, we saw several old friends we had not seen in years. We returned to Fresno on June 14. We left Fresno June 15 and spent one night in Yosemite National Park and one night in June Lake, CA. We are now in Reno where we expect to stay until Tuesday.