by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce Today, we drove to De Smet to see the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead. I must admit, I felt like this was a bit of an indulgence for our youngest daughter, who has read and re-read the Little House on the Prairie books at least twice, was...
by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce We have now been on the road for a month. We left June 27 and it is July 27. Believe it or not, none of us are really ready for it to end. We really could, I think, do a two-month road trip and manage just fine. What really amazes me is...
by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce Today we drove an hour outside of Gillette to see Devils Tower. It’s Devils, not Devil’s, because of a typo on the application form for designating the geologic formation as a national monument. It was something Dave had...
by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce What looks good on the map doesn’t always come out the way you expect, but the fact that the roads are “seasonally closed” should have been a clue. I don’t regret the path we took, but then, so far, Dave has done...
by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce I’ve driven through Wyoming a number of times and thought the experience was boring to the point of surreal. Flat landscape marked only by shadows of oil wells and the occasional deer munching on sweet greens on the side of the...
by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce Today was a bittersweet day. I was thrilled that my sister and her family decided to get up early with us and have breakfast with us before we all left for home…but I was incredibly sad to finally reach that moment where we had to...
by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce My husband is truly my hero. Do you know that so far, of the roughly 5,200 miles we’ve traveled, he has driven all of it? No complaints, always safe, always in good spirits even when traffic is bad and weather is worse. He’s...
by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce Here’s a secret to having a fun reunion: let people have some time to do what they want, even if you’re not all together. It’s part vacation after all. Hermiston, Oregon is only about 25 miles from the Wildhorse Casino,...
by Shadra Bruce | Family, Let's Talk
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce Thanks to my Aunt Lori, day 2 of our family reunion was fabulous. She reserved a spot at Hat Rock State Park and it was truly an idyllic setting. We had grills on which to cook our food, picnic tables to sit at, a lake to swim in, a...
by Shadra Bruce | Family, Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce My sister and I inherited from our mother a strong sense of family connection. Mom told us stories of her childhood in Edgemont, South Dakota and made sure that we knew not just aunts and uncles and grandparents but great aunts, great...
by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce There is a golden rule when traveling that I forgot: charge the damn camera the night before the big outing to the zoo. I didn’t. We got about 14 steps inside and my camera informed me that my battery was exhausted. My $400,...
by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce One of the great things about Portland, Oregon is Powell’s bookstore. Powell’s is bigger than a city block, located in downtown Portland, and filled with just about every kind of book you can think of. As a mom, I was pretty...
by Shadra Bruce | Keeping Marriage Strong, Travel
Today was a really special day for Dave and I in our travels. We left Newport and drove up 101 – a beautiful drive if you ever get the chance – to Seaside, Oregon. Seaside is special to us because it is where Dave – on one knee, in front of the whole...
by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Today, my dad was going to take our whole group on a whale watching tour. We dressed in the warmest clothes we had and met in Depoe Bay, only to find that the water was so rough that the company determined it was too unsafe to take us out. We had some disappointed...
by Shadra Bruce | Let's Talk, Travel
Getting Real With Shadra Bruce Our whole crew met at the Newport Aquarium today. It’s a small but fun aquarium with sea lions and otters and great displays of Pacific Northwest fish. Our kids may not remember the details of the aquarium, but they’ll...
