Four Broads in a Buick 9-29

Our trip out West in 1978
9-29-1978:  First stop today is at Lake Havasu and the London Bridge.  We ate breakfast at the Village Pub at the English Village by the bridge. (I googled the Bridge site and it said that most of the shops were boarded up now)
     Our next stop was at the Grand Canyon.  Marge and Berta had never seen it.  It was awe inspiring as usual.  We ate lunch at Bright Angel Lodge. (The Lodge overlooks the Canyon.  My belief is that whatever natural phenomena you see first becomes your favorite.  Mine is the Grand Canyon.  I have seen it at all different times of day and it is always beautiful)
     We stopped at Flagstaff for gas and as we pulled out of the station the muffler fell off again.  So around two blocks and back to the gas station to get it wired up.  An Indian couple with five little children were having the tire on their pick up changed.  We struck up a conversation with the kids, Pauline, Barney, Emerson, Amanda and Christine.
      We elected to drive all night so we could be home by Sunday, Judy has to go to work on Monday.
       We stopped about 11:30 p.m. at Gallop, New Mexico for supper.  Everyone had hamburgers and they sure tasted good.  As we drove out of the mountains down to Albequerque, the city below was one of the most beautiful sights we've seen, about a mile of lights, row after row.  Marge was asleep but the rest of us woke her and she agreed it was a sight worth waking up for.
      At Adrian, Texas, we stopped for gas and coffee.  While the others went inside, Norma slept in the car.  Marge was driving and was going along at a nice pace when she noticed everyone else was on another road.  She was tooling along the access road instead of the highway.  Five miles later she got back on the interstate.
       2:30 in the afternoon and we have stopped at a motel in Chandler,  Oklahoma to get some much needed sleep.
10-1:  We left Chandler at 5:30 a.m. heading home and got to Springfield, Missouri at about 10:30.  We spent a couple of hours visiting with Norma's in-laws and on the way North we drove through downtown St. Louis so that Berta could see the Gateway Arch.

     We've met some nice truckers on the CB this trip, especially on the night drives.  We've seen so many interesting and beautiful sights it will be months to sort them out.  We've driven over 5000 miles and everyone is still friends.  We've laughed so much our sides literally ache and one word or phrase of something that happened will start us off again (some things are better not to mention here)  All that we've seen, it is wonderful, though, to see these Illinois flatlands again!  (I love to travel and see new sites and sights, but nothing looks as good to me as driving through these Illinois corridors of corn.)

(I have a friend who calls God the 'Lone Arranger' and it was certainly true in Berta's case.  She decided to come back with us on a whim.  Unbeknown to any of us, she had MS and within a year was dead.  This trip gave her parents and siblings the last chance to visit with her).