Headwaters of the Mississippi

Contrary to popular belief, it is NOT in Bemidji, MN.  It is 30 miles south, here at Lake Itasca, where it then flows north to Bemidji and then south to, eventually, Louisiana.  Surprisingly, there is wifi at the state park here.  We have electrical at our campsite, lots of green grass and trees, and the lake just a hundred yards or so away.  We are here for two nights, but if you e er get a hankering to visit, it is beautiful state park.

Our site

Tom walking across the Mississippi River

Pieces and Bits

So...driving along Minnesota Highway 2 and I see we have a TMobile signal.  I have many megabytes of data on that system, so here goes the upload of the text to go with the pictures from yesterday...

From Devils Tower, where we awoke to a layer of forest fire smoke hanging heavy over the campground, we headed out to Medora, ND.  It would have been a beautiful drive if. It for the strong cross winds, gusting at 40-50 mph.  So much that it confused the Automatic Stability tracking in the RV, along with the Anti Lock Brakes and the Cruise Control.  Tom was a trooper while Cheryl was the official hand-wringer and worrier.  Fortunately, the computer reset itself after the wind effect was gone, but not for about 200 miles.

We arrived at Teddy Roosevelt National Park, found our campsite, and then headed out to see the park, prairie dogs, Teddy's cabin and finally, the Medora Musical.  The musical is set in a large natural amphitheater, and it starts out with two huge elk posing on the ridge top in the distance before they are herded down the mountainside by the Cowboys.  The musical is a fun two hours of patriotic singing and dancing with a feature act which changes every week or so.  This week's act was Terry ----.  You may have seen him on America's Got Talent last year with his dog Oliver; he is a ventriloquist.  Anyway, during the audience participation section, who does he pick but Tom to work with him.  As the Dummy. Tom was hysterical, even cracked up the ventriloquist who started laughing instead of ventriloquizing...and the audience was in tears laughing, me included.

Luck was again with us, as we arrived back at camp about 10:15 after the show, got ourselves tucked in for the night and the thunderstorm broke over us about ten minutes later.  We were nice and dry in the RV, and awoke with the sun about 5 am, and after a quick breakfast and shower we were on our way by 6:30 am as we had an even longer day ahead, 350 miles.

Shortly after our departure we encountered some cloud cover, which remained with us most of the day, not to break until we got nearly to our final destination.  But because we had a long day, we broke it up with a few stops, the first being the Lewis and Clark Interpretive center, at the site of Fort Manden.  Don't know if any of you plan to be be near Bismarck, ND, but if you are, this museum and the nearby reconstructed fort are well worth the stop for a couple of hours.  Interesting factoids are that this is where Sacajawea joined the expedition, and where they over-wintered for five months in 1805-1806 out of their 28 month expedition to the Pacific and back.

Our journey continued along the Lewis and Clark trail for quite aways, until we headed east again at Minot and then north at rugby.  Along the way we saw a lot of prairie, cattle, highway mowers and twere fascinated to see that they don't just mow the medians and side verges, they also bale the cuttings into those giant round rolls, which seem to dot the landscape this time of year.  Rugby was our second stop, primarily for gas, but we also took note that this is the Geographic Center of North America.

45 miles later we were at our final destination for the night, the International Peace Garden on the border between Canada and the USA, just north of the town of Dunseith, ND.  The entrance is located midway between the US and Canadian border checkpoints.  One 'leaves' the US side to enter the garden, so you have to have your passport to get back. Or as we plan to do, go into Canada.    We toured the gardens and did the obligatory picture straddling the international border.  They have had a lot of rain recently, and our campsite is near a wooded meadow...very picturesque and full of flying and biting bugs, so we're cooking in tonight.

Made it the next day to Winkler where our alarm issue was resolved with a new detector, they fixed a few cosmetic blemishes and gave us a factory tour by Dean, the guy from the LTV videos.

Bits and Pieces

We are at the RV manufacturing factory in Winkler Manitoba today. We had a few minor failures (more midnight alarms) that they are taking a look at. I have lots of pictures from events over the last three days, and I will post some of them here.  But you're going to have to wait for the full description and explanations until I can get back to my iPad and a Wi-Fi connection at the same time.  I've got the pictures on my phone but the text on my iPad. I may not have Wi-Fi for another three or four days either. Don't fret, I'll connect them up when I can.

Devils Tower

It was an unusual night, again.   A cold front was coming through and the wind that accompanied that shook us all night long. What sounded like ladders and trash cans and unknown objects of varying sizes hitting our RV turned out to be one little sewer cap that was swinging in the wind.  Tied that up and got some sleep, although the wind never died down.

We headed out west across the Belle Fourche into Wyoming, still having to grab the steering wheel tightly every now and then when a wind gust slammed us.   We spotted several wildfires on the horizon, along with heavy lift helos carrying water drop buckets.  As we got closer, we ended up driving through some very smoky valleys and draws, but never saw actual fire, firefighters or burned areas.  We passed the leading edge of the smoke and popped into blue skies and majestic vistas about 8 miles from our destination for the night.

We are camped less than 100 yards from the monument entrance at a very nice KOA with grass and cottonwood trees shading us.  Every night at 8 pm they play an outdoor movie...approriately it is always the same one, 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'.  Yep, we're going tonight.  We move off tomorrow morning into North Dakota.  We are roughing it tomorrow, camping in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  No hookups, 😱.  Probably no cell service or wifi, either, so I'll add to the blog when next possible.

Wall Drug and the Badlands

Hidden among the many miles of prairies, are Minuteman missile silos, the Badlands National Park, and the somewhat (?) famous Wall Drug of Wall, South Dakota.

I didn't get a picture of the Minuteman Missile National Memorial because all you could see was the visitor center, which was very good. There were many displays and photos of an active silo.  The rest was all prairie.

Our next stop was Badlands National Park. In looking at the photos, you may notice a strong resemblance to Tent Rocks in New Mexico. We thought it was amazingly similar. Although the Badlands stretches for many more miles.

It wasn't a very hospitable place, as the Visitor Center placard tells us.

Lastly we made a stop at Wall Drug. This place covers an entire city block in a tiny town that stretches maybe six blocks by four blocks. Here you can pan for gold, take a mining tour, eat lunch at a café that seats 350, sit at an actual soda fountain and have a malt or a shake, view the art gallery, play in the water park, go through about 50 independent shops, and oh, they do have an actual drugstore in the center.

A bit of serendipity happened today. The Great Race is a car road rally held using vintage cars. It just so happened they were traveling the same stretch of road between Rapid City and points east. We saw them going through Badlands and on the interstate; here's one car.

Mount Rushmore!

Tom had been here as a child, but I had never been here before. So after all these years I was very excited to finally see Mount Rushmore in person. We spent a couple of hours hiking around the trails looking at the monument from various different angles, and just generally enjoying the nice weather and cool breeze. 

We have now moved on to Ellsworth Air Force Base.  After a quick replenishment stop at the commissary we found our place at the family camp.  It's chore day for the rest of the day. Laundry, wash the rig, clean the inside. Tomorrow we head out to see the Badlands.

Custer

We left camp early this morning in Hot Springs, and proceeded to Wind Cave National Park. It was a good thing we went early, as there was quite a crowd of people already starting to form. This cave is nothing like the one at Carlsbad, but it does have a unique formation called box work.

Something else interesting about this cave, is that there is a one square mile surface area which the cave is under. Within that one square mile going down about 250 to 300 feet there are over 100 miles of passageways. And they are not yet done exploring the passages. This makes the cave at least the sixth largest cave in the world.

Having had two very busy and full days in a row, we chose to end today fairly early. (Thank you Betty!). We are camped at Custer's Gulch RV park. It is near Custer, South Dakota and it is in the same ravine where George Armstrong Custer had his encampment.

Last but not least I included two photos of one of the quilts that was hanging in the visitor center at Wind Cave National Park. Some of my friends will really appreciate the quality of the quilt work.

This is a quilted representation of Mount Rushmore for the National Park Centennial

Detail of Washington

Hot Springs

Drove up today through Nebraska. Stopped at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, which is really great if you're into fossils. Not so exciting if you aren't. Then we stopped by the Museum of Fur Trading.  Excellent museum that covers fur trading across the entire continent. Amazing artifacts and explanations of how the fur trade helped to establish the United States.  "The Revenant" costumes on display, as this museum was the technical advisor for Period Authenticity on the film.

There is also a little trading post which was actively used for many years.

Despite the record-breaking heat, that's our intrepid trader awaiting us at the door where inside it's a cool temperature because most of the trading post is built into the side of the hill.

Our last stop for the day was the Mammoth Site, which is an ongoing archaeological dig in the middle of the city. They have found the bones from over 61 Columbian and woolly mammoth here. There was a Hot Spring that was so attractive to the mammoth that they fell in but could not get out.

It was so hot today that by the end of the day all we could think about was jumping into the pool back at the RV park. They named it Hot Springs because of the natural Hot Springs waters that bubble up here, but today it was just plain hot everywhere.

Traveling the Oregon Trail in Nebraska

It was an interesting night last night. The smoke alarm went off about an hour after we went to bed.  We both leapt out of bed but couldn't figure out how to silence the alarm.  Tom finally yanked it off it's mount and shoved it underneath the covers. That muffled it enough that we could deal with it later. It finally turned off and we went back to sleep after the adrenaline stopped pumping. Not sure what set it off but we blew some air through it and it seemed to be OK and did not go off the rest of the night.  Then when leaving this morning we somehow got out of sync with our regular routine and didn't do all the things we normally do and managed to leave our temperature gauge behind somewhere at our site, plus we didn't get all the tanks empty.  

It was turning into a real comedy of errors at that point. We had an uneventful drive up towards Scotts Bluff and then we took the scenic detour. Nothing happened on the detour but we did take the long way around. We saw Courthouse rock, Jail rock, Chimney Rock, and finally Scotts Bluff.  By the time we finally got there we felt just like the original pioneers traveling the Oregon Trail leaving bits of our things behind and making do with the supplies on hand.

America's First RV's

The intrepid pioneer spies Chimney Rock near the trail.

The view from atop Scotts Bluff

We never expected June to be this Hot!

Neither did the folks who live here.  We arrived this afternoon at our camp stop for the night just south of Pueblo.  The temperature is 99 degrees, and most of the park has jumped into the pool to cool off.  Not wanting to cook, we stopped at the conveniently located Obie's Fillin' station and bought Texas style real smoked barbecue for dinner. Gassed up the rig at the same time and we're ready to roll in the morning.  Supposed to be cooler in Nebraska tomorrow.

Here's a little picture out the window, we got very lucky and have a shady site with trees, which help a lot with comfort, but we are really happy to have air conditioning!

I just noticed when I looked more closely at the picture...that's the smoke plume from the New Mexico and/or Arizona wildfires causing the haze over the mountains in the distance.

Here we go again....

Well folks, the sporadic and occasional blog is warming up and about to get some use again.  We leave on Sunday for an RV trip to the Midwest and to add about four new states to the travel map.

Actually, this is just Cheryl's map, because Tom has already visited every state except Maine.  And technically I have been in both Wisconsin and Massachusetts, but I am not counting them yet as they were just an airport transfer or a drive across a bridge and then turning around.  But I do expect to add both of those on an actual visit this year.  Wisconsin in the next couple of weeks and Massachusetts this fall.   So stayed tuned for more.