Record of our recent vacation through the US and eastern Canada

June 29, Monday

• This trip took place in July 2015. The objective was to visit Ori's relatives in Nebraska and then to continue north to Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We would return home to Arizona through a number of states not yet determined. 
• We started out on Monday, June 29, 2015, and went up the Beeline Highway (AZ SR 87). We stopped briefly at Heber/Overgaard and took a few photos of our land on the Mogollon Rim. You can see some of the photos in the Flickr Album named "2015 - Trip to Nebraska." The land looked fine and we continued down the road to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

June 30, Tuesday

• Took off for Kansas. Had thought of going to Hays but decided to go to Dodge City instead -- a few less miles and we weren't in any great hurry.
• Which was a good thing since in the middle of Kansas, north of Meade, a deputy sheriff began to follow us on a road travelled by -- ourselves and the deputy. Apparently he had nothing better to do so he followed us for about 10 miles or so in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately my cruise control was working so I could stay within the speed limits without any difficulty and I didn't have any broken tail-lights so we finally left him when we turned east toward Dodge.
• At this point I knew the address for the hotel we had reserved (the Hampton Inn at a Casino on the outskirts of Dodge) was not on any of our paper road maps. So I invoked Siri and she guided us directly to our hotel via a number of left and right turns.
• The hotel was nice and the food we had for dinner at the Casino next door was good. 

July 1, Wednesday

• The next morning I woke up early and began thinking about where we would enter Canada after our visiting in Nebraska. Then it hit me -- I didn't have my passport along with me. I had forgotten it at home! I woke up Carey and told her I had just had a horrible thought -- I had forgotten to bring my passport. She looked at me and said: "So did I." What a predicament! At least neither of us could blame the other for ruining our plans. We ere both guilty. 
• Since we were about 900 miles away from home we figured we would simply scuttle the Canada part of the trip and do the visiting in Nebraska and go back home. So we let our son and daughter, who live in the Phoenix area, know about our plight and the change in plans. However, they convinced us that this was not necessary and they could go to our house, find the passports and FedEx them to us in Nebraska. After figuring out how our son could navigate around our security alarm system we decided this was a good option. He retrieved both passports the next morning on Thursday and they arrived in Nebraska before noon on Friday, Our Canada trip was back in play.
• We arrived in York, Nebraska, on Wednesday afternoon.

July 2, Thursday

• We spent Thursday around Henderson, Nebraska. We visited Ori's relatives, a number of whom were in the Henderson Nursing Home, had a wrenikje [verenike] lunch at the Dutch Kitchen (which closed its doors for good later in July) and toured the Henderson Mennonite Heritage Center. 

July 3, Friday

• We spent some time taking photos of farms where Ori had lived. This included the farm near McCool Jct, where Ori rode a horse 1.5 miles to school in the 1st grade, the farm by the Blue River south of Henderson where Ori's mother and her 8 siblings had lived earlier and the farm north of Henderson by Beaver Creek, which is occupied but pretty much overgrown with trees. 
• We then went to Lincoln to visit the Janzen family. hen we arrived our passports had already been delivered earlier that morning. So now our Canada trip was definitely back on track. 
• In the evening we saw a lot of early July 4th fireworks from our hotel window. It was really incredible how many display there were throughout the city and in peoples' backyards. 

July 4, Saturday

• We spent the day visiting and showing photos on my iPad of the previous days in Henderson and earlier gatherings. 
• In the evening we saw a lot more July 4th fireworks from our hotel. Nebraska people really love their fireworks.