Midwest Thunderstorms

We've been very lucky with our weather this trip...until today.  The dry air moved elsewhere and we had a sticky, hot day today.  But we did our tour around the seven colonies of Amana,  stopping at the art, antique, craft and quilt stores and shopping our way through them.  We had a few surprises, some delightful, such as finding out the Fern Hill Gift Shop was really half antiques and half quilt shop, and home to a well-known fabric designer.  Oddly, about half of the museum stops were closed, although we did use the audio tour to hear about them, but others were open for touring.  We naturally made repeat stops at the Meat and Sausage market, the Millstream brewery and the Bakery.  We somehow found room to stash the various purchases into cubbyhole spaces, the refrigerator and our mouths.

I am writing this at 2:30 am, having been abruptly awakened by the arrival of a thunderstorm with 50 mph winds, rain and hail.  Between the A/C and the fan, I could have slept through the lightning and hail, but the winds were rocking the motorhome just as much as if we were driving down the interstate.  It's now a half hour later, and the rain and hail have lessened considerably, but we still hear the thunder and lightning.   The weather apps and the national weather service all say this will be going on till 5:30 or 6.  😱

(We're in the yellow area with the line of thunderstorms, just below the watch box)

And....I will edit here (later Wednesday Morning)...that the power went out about 4 am.  Looks like it was something to do with the surge protector, probably all wet from the rain....but poor Tom had to go outside in the rain and fiddle around with the connections at that hour.   While it wasn't the best night of sleep, it sure was an adventure!

Amana Colonies

We are here in the middle of corn-growing Iowa.  And I do mean that literally, we are in the middle of a cornfield; a very large middle,granted, but on all sides of us is growing corn. About a mile down the road is Amana and Middle Amana two of the seven Amana colonies.  Being as today is the Fourth of July, tonight there will be a large fireworks spectacular over Lily Lake down in Amana. Tom and I are taking the scooter and a couple of folding chairs down to see the festivities.  Don't have any pictures yet, but if I get some tonight I will add them to the post.

Oh, I did have One picture of our cornfield.

Not sure if these will work, here is the best still shot of the fireworks.  Quite a big show for a small town; as good as anything at the Isotopes.

Minnesota and Wisconsin

I know it's been a few days since I reported in, that's because we have been in two state parks two days each and connection has been a little difficult. But I have a couple observations to share about both Minnesota and Wisconsin.

1.  They're both beautiful states. We have had lovely weather, highs in the mid 70s lows about 60 and everywhere is green grass, green trees, green hills.

Can you see the butterfly?

2.  That's the other thing, Hills! I was expecting very flat Prairie much like the Dakotas or Kansas or Nebraska. Instead, I have these beautiful rolling hills with something interesting and new around each bend.  Even the farms have been gorgeous.

3.  Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I had forgotten that the "Little House on the Prairie" books all took place in this area. It was fun to stop by the museum and a reconstructed homestead.

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.