August 7 (Day 99) – August 18 (Day 110) – Sterling to Englewood, CO to Salt Lake City, UT

We left a wonderful family visit in Sterling behind and within a few miles crossed the Mississippi River into Iowa and endless miles of corn and soy beans.  In fact, from Ohio to the Nebraska/Colorado line we saw corn miles deep and more miles long everywhere we looked.  It’s hard to believe we have world hunger when you drive through that tunnel of corn.  We began to see many motorcycles headed east on the Interstate and when we realized they were mostly Harley Davidsons it dawned on us that Sturgis was just breaking up.  Event organizers estimated over 1 million riders came Sturgis way this year – I think I’ll pass!  We boon docked in a Wal Mart near Ogallala, Nebraska along with many Sturgis escapees trailering their bikes and headed home.  It did tickle my bike spirit with a reminder of my fine BMW GT parked on the lift in my shop.

We got an early start from Ogallala and pulled into grandson Jordan’s place in Englewood just after noon.  Todd brought out an extension chord with a 3-way plug that turned out to be mis-wired for 220 VAC instead of to code at 120 VAC.  We fried our inverter/charger and our transfer switch and had to have both replaced in the driveway.  After our first glimpse of our new great grandson Zachary Tai we settled in for a nice family visit with son Todd and Kathy, grandson Jordan and Ruth, and granddaughter Nichole, James and our other three greats - Aiden, Emma and Jaxson.  Zachary is a wonderful new born and raised our family in the Denver area to ten in number. 

August 15 (Day 107) – August 18 (Day 110) – Englewood to Salt Lake City, UT

We planned a weekend escape from the greater Denver area and before long we were headed north to Cheyenne, WY and back on to I-80 west bound.  We found a wonderful RV park in Lyman, WY – a real sleeper and within striking distance of SLC the next day.  We arrived at nephew JR and Lori’s home where they slid us into their deep driveway and plugged us in.  We stayed with Michele’s mother while in SLC and toured brother/sister-in-law Brent and Magali’s new project at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains with magnificent views of the valley.  Twas time to have my CAT engine serviced and I spent several hours at the local truck stop.