Iowa Bound

 Luckily I woke up early to check on the time because it WAS time to get up AND I had the alarm set for 5:20pm instead of 5:20am! 

I had taken just a small bag into Jill's along with the small ice chest so it didn't take long to pack up and hit the road!  We headed to Cheyenne so we could just get on I-80 there - I found a Scooters RIGHT off the interstate as soon as we got on, so we stopped there for breakfast sandwiches and coffee for the road!

The nice thing about leaving so early is that the traffic isn't quite as bad and we took turns driving!  Stopped somewhere for lunch at Arby's - I took a picture since it was Fathers' Day - not a very exciting one, ha!  But their shakes ARE the best!

When we get close to the Mormon Bridge, we know it's only 1 more hour to get to Soldier!

It was great to see Patty and Leonard!  Jim and Brenda came down later along with 2 nephews so we had quite the crew around!  Leonard grilled up pork burgers for whoever wanted them and we had a great evening!

Monday morning we headed up to Don and Nadine's place - they are both in their 90's now but still getting around great - their niece Kristin was there also!  I had brought a lemon bundt cake for Patty and we took a plate of that to have with our coffee, along with fresh bread Nadine had made!

It's always enjoyable catching up with them and we all loved our time spent together!

Back to Soldier for a quick lunch and then we headed out to see the farm!  Last summer the guy who had bought the house and acreage finally moved out and Gran Family Farms purchased this area back!  The house was in horrible shape so it was pushed into the basement, covered up and all smoothed out.  The barn was also taken down!  Oh my gosh did it look different out there!  The guys had reseeded it with grass and planted 4 fruit trees - it all looked amazing!!  It was sad to see the house gone that we basically grew up in but it was so nice to see the beautiful countryside!

Jim, Patty and I in the area where the house used to stand.

Then it was on to the Soldier cemetary to see Amy's gravesite - such a beautiful area!

It's hard to believe she's been gone almost a year!

So we accomplished a LOT on our first full day back!