Heading North!

Our tour de America started with a visit to some great friends, Matt and Jaclyn, who moved to Clarksville, TN a couple of months ago. It was wonderful to see their house and visit with them for a bit before we moved far away. Jaclyn even made a traditional Canadian dessert, Nanaimo bars, for us to try!

Next we visited St. Louis to see my parents and enjoy a little midwestern cuisine. We tried Pappy's Smokehouse (a Man vs. Food restaurant we had seen on the Food Network) and it was delicious. It was also super fun just to spend some time with my family. We also took a few pictures for some family photos, and they turned out great!

 Dad and Mom Sutterfield and John with Jeff and I, we'll see you in a few weeks for skiing.

We also had the opportunity to visit Fulton and see Jeff's parents. We visited some of Jeff's extended family and went to church before heading out. Our last stop in Missouri was Kansas City to eat a (too) quick dinner with good friends who live there. Hopefully one day we may live there again and be close to them again!

Once we started the real drive up to Canada, we decided to make a few quick stops to check out some tourist locations. I saw signs for the Corn Palace in South Dakota. I'd always heard about the Corn Palace, so I asked Jeff if we could stop. He was not thrilled by this idea at all, but he humored me and we made a quick stop. I was surprised to find out that the Corn Palace is basically a glorified gymnasium that houses concerts and events. And apparently there are the Corn Palace Days sometime in the summer. Not too much to actually see there, but hey, at least we can say we've been. :)

They change the corn (and the design of the building) every year. The first corn palace was made in 1905ish. Kind of crazy they've been doing it for that long!    

One of our favorite stops was the Badlands in South Dakota. One of the coolest National Parks we have ever been to. If you ever have the opportunity to see them, it is well worth the trip. We were there right before sunset, so we got a pretty awesome view.

So beautiful! And the park seemed to go on forever!

Another shot. 

And just one more...

We also saw Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse on our way through South Dakota. Definitely some neat sites that you should see sometime in your life! We had to buy a yearly parking pass at Mount Rushmore, so anyone with a TN license plate who may want to see Mount Rushmore, we can hook you up! :)


We just finished up a great weekend visit from Jeff's parents for American Thanksgiving. It wasn't a holiday here in Canada, which made for an interesting day, but we had a lot of fun, tried some Canadian cuisine and got to see some pretty neat things while they were here. More posts to come soon for sure! Also, we will be moving into our house here in Calgary this week, so hopefully I can put up some pictures of the new pad soon!

Until next time from north of the border, eh!

Jeff and Em