1999 continued

1999 really was an exciting year, full of great trips and people visiting us.

I started off the year by flying to England and spending ten days with Mair.    I landed in Manchester and my great niece and nephew picked me up and took me to Southport where Mair lived.     She and I spent a few fantastic days with her friend Jean who lived in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales.    It was my first visit to this part of England and I was absolutely enthralled with its beauty and the amazing little villages.

From there we went to Llandudno and spent a couple of days with our cousin and her husband.   

This photo of Mair is taken on the West Shore in Llandudno.   Our home was a couple of short blocks from this shore.     The hotel you can see in the background is where Lewis Carrol stayed with his daughter Alice, and where he wrote Alice in Wonderland.    Just looking at this photo brings back a torrent of memories.    I dearly love this town.

Not too long after this trip, Louise and I set off for Mt Rushmore.    Susan and Mark were living and working there at the time.     We drove across the lesser known roads across Nebraska to get there and stopped at a rare roadside attraction.     It was all done with cars, and duplicated Stonehenge.    Quite a feat by someone.

We drove across the Custer State Park and saw some pretty large herds of buffalo.

Mt. Rushmore itself was quite impressive and Suzanne, Louise and I took a side trip to the town of Deadwood, which I really enjoyed.    One of Dick's great\great\great uncles was sherrif of Deadwood and his portrait still hangs over one of the bars there.     He was there the same time as Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane, and wrote a small book about his time there.     Apparently the great romance between Bill and Jane was not as told in Hollywood.    He couldn't stand the sight of her and would say that he could smell her coming even before she came into sight!

On the way home we took the more direct route across Iowa, sightseeing along the way.     The Corn Palace was fascinating.     Inside was full of corn murals too and they are all done freshly each year.