Ketchum, ID

 It is always nice to get back to our favorite place in our country, Sun Valley.  We had two fantastic weeks enjoying the mountains, restaurants and friends.  Danelle and I did several hikes to various mountain lakes and were joined by good friends from Boise on a very scenic hike along Redfish Lake.  We took a side trip from SV to Craters of the Moon National Monument.  It had been over 30 years since either of us last visited the park and it was good to refresh the memory of the sights.  Some high school friends were also able to visit us in SV during our stay and we got in a challenging hike up to the top of Baldy.  We are already looking forward to coming back next year.  

Cheyenne, WY

 Cheyenne is a fun western town that celebrates its history of cowboys and the railroads that built our country.  We toured the state capitol building, the Cheyenne depot museum and walked around the historic downtown area.  No stop in Cheyenne would be complete without a visit to the Big Boy Steam Engine on display in their city park.

St. Louis, MO

 No trip through the St. Louis area would be complete without meeting our good friends for dinner.  It was a quick stop this year with no sightseeing, but we did have some great seafood and company for dinner.

Springfield, IL

As we have a goal to visit as many of the presidential libraries and museums as possible, Springfield was an obvious stop so we could visit the home of one of our greatest presidents.  The Lincoln museum and library was a powerful reminder of the accomplishments he was able to make during one of the most difficult times in the history of our country.  We would highly recommend stopping if you are in the area.  We were also able to visit the Lincoln grave and monument.  This was the one and only time it was nice to have virtually no tourists out and about.   Frank Lloyd Wright also designed a fantastic house in Springfield that you can tour.  Since we are big FLW fans, the Dana-Thomas house was a must see attraction for us.

Cincinnati, OH

 Cincinnati was a surprise for us.  Even though we could only visit the ball park without seeing a game we enjoyed the tour through the Reds museum.  There were so many historic baseball events that happened in Cincinnati.  One of our other highlights was a visit to the American Sign Museum.  This museum had all sorts of signs from the different eras of our history and the evolution of advertisement signs.

Lebanon/Cincinnati NE KOA

A very nice KOA park located in the quiet city of Lebanon just 30 minutes from the center of Cincinnati. The KOA has all of the amenities to keep the family and pets occupied. They have the pool, playground, pet park, jumpy and basketball court. There are a lot of trees around the park, but our pull through site was open which allowed for our satellite to connect. The sites are gravel with a patio, picnic table and fire pit. Their wifi worked well and the staff was courteous and easy to work with during our stay. We would recommend this park for anyone visiting the Cincinnati area as it gets your away from the city, but is still close enough with an easy freeway drive. 4 out of 5 for this park.