Tour To America and Special Times with My Mother Part #1

I want to share a little about my tour to America.

As you might have seen in my last post I do Archery now, and was part of the South African Team that went to Madison, Wisconsin, USA in July 2014. 

My dear mother went with me. It was really special to have her along and have her all to myself for 3 weeks! This is on our first flight, very excited, as it was my first time out of the country. 

The night we flew over Italy, there was a thunderstorm and I managed to catch one on camera. It was quite amazing to see from above the clouds! 

 We stopped in Frankfurt, Germany for a 2 hour layover. Mom and I didn’t have our boarding passes printed yet, so we went ahead of the group, to get out passes printed. 

 After our boarding passes had been issued, we had 45min before boarding. We could walk around the German shops in the airport. Here I’m standing at a little coo-coo clock shop. 

On our way to the USA, beautiful sight. 

As we came into Chicago. Our last flight to Madison was delayed with 2 hours so we had a lot of time to kill at the Chicago airport. 

This is Madison from the air! It’s so beautiful and non of the houses have fences! 

We took the local bus to the hotel and literally stacked the bus with all our luggage and bow boxes! 

We arrived at our hotel early afternoon and later that evening walked over to a bowling alley to have dinner and play some bowling. Me on the left with 2 friends. 

We had lost of fun, I played for the first time ever! 

The next day we went walking around in the streets of Madison. It was so interesting for us to see how the people stopped in the road for us to pass on foot - not something you see in South Africa very often. 

Every day we got day passes for the bus and would drive from one place to the other! 

We stopped at Dunkin Doughnuts which had the best donuts I have ever tasted! 

Madison was so beautiful and green. 

There are also a LOT of lakes in Madison.   

 We enjoyed walking in the streets, with trees everywhere!

And beautiful houses! 

There was even a real yellow school bus. We only see those in movies! 

American flag! 

We had to wait for the metro bus and we would sit on the soft, green grass while waiting.

Yes the grass was really soft! 

We saw some beautiful flowers as we walked! 

We went to the Henry Vilas Zoo. 

And had some fun in the children playground! 

The whole team with family waiting for a bus to go to the mini golf course. 

The mini golf course was amazing and totally different to what we are used to! 

We also tried to hit some real golf balls with a real club…….. 

I think we did a good job! Lol! 

The South African team girl archers!

There was no red meat at the places we stayed, so my mother and I went to a seafood and grill late one afternoon. We had the most amazing steak with backed potato. We enjoyed the time alone, it was also the day before my Birthday so it was like my birthday dinner! 

The next day I got my NASP South African/National colours on my 17th birthday! It was so special! 

My mother on the left, myself, Roy Grimes (President of NASP) and Wilhelm Greeff, President of NASP S.A. 

The South African team with coaches and team managers.

This is part #1 of our American Tour. There are still lots more photos to show and events to tell about, if I put it all in one post it will be way to long. Read Part #2 and Part #3!

Thanks for Reading!