Colonel Sanders and Glacier Girl

Yes, we were in Corbin, Kentucky, the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken. No, we did not visit the Colonel Sanders Museum but we did drive about 40 miles down the road to the home hangar of "Glacier Girl", a restored P-38 Lightning, in Middlesboro, Kentucky. This was not just any restoration project. The original plane was in a forced landing on a Greenland glacier. Over the decades since the forced landing the snow and ice built up over the P-38 to over two hundred feet. The recovery effort was innovative and demanding. Read about it here. I'll post some of the photos we took later. We are settled in for the night at a WalMart in Laurens, SC.

Corbin, Kentucky

We stopped at Corbin, Kentucky for the night. This is the location of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant. The place is still open and has a museum dedicated to KFC and Colonel Sanders. You can read more here.

We traveled through Indianapolis, Indiana and Cincinati, Ohio today. All of the trip was through smoky conditions. Only at the end, as we neared this location, did we start getting into clear air. We talked about how over the long term whatever elements are in the smoky air would precipitate out into the soil and onto the crops. The corn, the wheat, and all other crops that eventually become food products would surely become contaminated. We hope that the conditions we saw today were infrequent and not constant.

Lunch in Indiana

We stopped at a WalMart in Greensburg, Indiana to buy a few things from their Food Center and to have a sandwich for lunch. The entire trip from Minneapolis to here has been in smoky conditions. It looks like air pollution or smog. We think it is from all of the industry around here but we could be long. A quick sandwich and then we move on towards South Carolina. We will not get that far today but will definitely be there before the end of the week.

Eastern USA

We spent the night in Crawfordsville, Indiana last night at a KOA. After being in Canada and the Western USA there are some obvious things we have observed about the east. It is much, much, more congested than the west and that would be an obvious characteristic one would think of just looking at a map. But, there are other differences. Our highway world, that thin narrow strip that connects us to new places, has changed. Instead of RVs and cars with a few trucks we now see mostly trucks and cars. Around major cities like Minneapolis the drivers are as insane and rude as they are in South Florida although that area certainly holds the title for driving insanity. Off the road, as usual, the people here in the mid west as they have been in other areas are helpful, courteous, and polite. We use Walgreens to fill our prescriptions and every single store we have been in has been unusually helpful and courteous. The only store we have ever had problems with and continue to is the one nearest our house at home. They are the worst Walgreens in the entire USA in terms of dealing with the pharmacy. We think it is because their work load is too great for that store.

Today we will pass through Indianapolis as we continue towards South Carolina for a visit with Bob's mom and dad. Then we will start our trip back to Florida for the arrival of our second granddaughter. The trip has been an amazing adventure and the blog postings are just highlights of things we have seen. We have gained a perspective on North America that will require a lot of thought and review to put into words. We have also learned a lot about the technology of keeping in touch while traveling. Surprisingly Bob's cell phone, a Nokia 3650, has been the most reliable internet connection at speeds better than dial up. Using T-Mobile and the phone as a modem for the laptop we were connected almost continuously even while traveling across Alberta and Saskatchewan on the PH-1 Highway, the Trans Canada. It was a delight to pass through a town or by a feature in the landscape with the ability to Google it while driving to learn more. Barbara has become pretty confident driving the Mothership too and that has provided a welcome break for Bob. She drives the big rig now even in heavy truck traffic and crosswinds and does a great job at it.

More Wind Generators

These things are everywhere. We just passed this.
We have discussed the subject often on the trip and have always said we would rather look at these beautiful wind generators spinning around harvesting energy from Mother Nature than look at smoke stacks from a conventional generating plant. It is such a joy to watch these things spinning and making electricity so gracefully and elegantly without any emissions or pollution whatsoever. We love them. The latest issue of National Geographic has an excellent article on alternate energy generation. I highly recommend it if you can get it. It is available in newstands or book stores in the periodical section.

Stoughton

Left Minneapolis yesterday. Drove through the center of the city on the interstate in heavy traffic. Continued through cheese country of Wisconsin as we left Minnesota. Heavy truck traffic all the way to Madison, Wisconsin. We decided to dry camp for the night and picked out a WalMart in Madison but when we arrived there it was in a busy construction area with a lot of traffic. We decided to go on south of Madison to Stoughton instead. We looked up the address of the WalMart there and called ahead. Barbara spoke to the manager who said parking overnight was fine. Driving to the store we passed through the center of Stoughton and found it to be a beautiful little town. Main street had Norwegian flags hanging from every light pole. We parked for the night in a corner of the parking lot out of the way of cars and were able to run the generator so that this morning we are watching the space shuttle rentry.

Stoughton, pronouced "Stowton (rhymes with snow)", is largely of Norwegian heritage. That explains the flags on Main Street. We hope to find a place downtown to have breakfast this morning and will take a few photos of this delightful little town. For more information about stoughton click here for the Chamber of Commerce web site. It is nice.

Big Things

Ok, let's recap. When you last joined our roving reporters they were in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Seems they found out that Moose Jaw has some strange subterrenean tunnels that Al Capone supposedly used as a hide out. But, most of all they have a big thing. You know you have to find big things when on the prairie. This big thing is Mac the Moose. We had some other people take our picture in front of Mac. Our "Big Thing on the Prairie." We found a web site that lists all of the Big Things but this is the only one we got close to.

On our way to Moose Jaw we passed a place called Chaplin, SK. It is worth mentioning because of the strange white mineral deposits everywhere. Turns out they were sodium sulphate deposits and Chaplin is known for producing something from it called "saltcake." I guess it is used for making glass and paper and other stuff. We were so baffled by it that we had to Google it as soon as we got to Moose Jaw.

Ok, so we left Moose Jaw and headed south towards the border into the US. The roads in Canada are quite good with wide shoulders and frequent pullouts. Now, this is weird, but just before we crossed the border we stopped at a WalMart that appeared way out in a little town on the prairie in Saskatchwan. We picked up a few things and then went on to North Portal, SK. Seems Portal and North Portal are one and the same town with one unique thing. One half of it is in Canada and the other half is in the US. Our crossing was uneventful with a nice border patrol guy inspecting us and giving us the all clear.

We then followed the stair step township and range roads in North Dakota and worked our way down to Minot. There are some tiny and remote little towns up in North Dakota and each of them must have a great story but we didn't stop as we had miles to go. After Minot we took a highway south towards Jamestown, SD having picked out a campground that looked good for the night. We traveled 14o miles from Minot to Jamestown in North Dakota with no cell phone coverage and almost no traffic on a fantastic, straight as an arrow, road. When we got to Jamestown we picked up cell coverage and called the campground. "We are full and are parking them on the grass." was the reply to our question about a site for the night. We checked our atlas and found that there was a WalMart in Jamestown so we headed for that. Arriving we found a small village of about 12 large motorhomes so we made ourselves at home. The manager, a young woman, came out to greet us and was astonished at the number. "I have never seen so many of you here." she said. She was very friendly and told us to make ourselves at home and that the store opened at noon the next day. She said that she loves having motorhomes in the parking lot but some stores cannot allow it because of municipal laws.

After our night in the WalMart parking lot we headed east through fields of sunflowers and corn until we started encountering eastern culture near Minneapolis, Minnesota in the form of grid locked traffic on I-94. Good to be back in the east. Right! Here we are in Minneapolis with a drive to Chicago tomorrow. Oh boy. What fun. We really want to get through this densely populated area but we fear traffic is going to be heavy from here on out. That's about all the news that is fit to print from the Mothership. Oh, Barbara has been getting in lots of time piloting the Mothership and is doing really well. It is nice having a relief driver to share the load.

Banff

Here are some photos from our too brief stay in Banff. As I said before, it was just too much to see in the time we had remaining. We did see some of the scenery, The Banff Springs Hotel, Banff Village, Tunnel Mountian, and we drove up to the top of Mount Norquay (sp?). The Banff/Jasper area is vast. It consists of many National Parks that are connected to each other extending for nearly two hundred miles to the north. We had hoped to drive up to Jasper to spend a few days and even see the start of the Canada to Alaska Highway, the AlCan, but realistically this is a major trip and to do it justice we would have to spend much, much, more time here. Sounds like a trip for the future doesn't it? We loved driving into the entrance to the Banff Provincial Park and being greated with a "Bon Jour." We really felt as though we had reached an exotic place hearing that French salutation. This is an absolutely gorgeous area and does indeed deserve another trip for further exploration and enjoyment.

Musings from Moose Jaw

We could not return without a visit to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. What person alive would not want to be able to say they had been to Moose Jaw? Now, our lives are complete for we have spent the night in Moose Jaw. All kidding aside this is one of the nicest campsites we have visited. It is immaculately clean and neat. All sites are paved and easy to pull through with the car attached.

We traversed 508 miles today across Alberta and Saskatchewan. The wide open spaces of the Canadian prairies are truly awe inspiring. We saw amazing quantities of hay in the fields. Some areas had giant hay bales as far as one could see. The preparations for winter are nearly completed and it is an impressive site. I will add some photos later but wanted to get this posted.

Tomorrow we cross the border back into the US down at North Portal into North Dakota. Since we will be traveling some smaller roads we may not cover the miles we did today. Hopefully we will get somewhere near Jamestown, North Dakota to spend the night.

Prairie Posting

We are traveling eastward across the vast prairies of Alberta. Our stay in Banff was a bit short but we did an estimate of our time and decided it was time to head back towards home. The scenery in Banff was spectacular but so vast that it would require a trip just for that. Barbara is driving and I am typing using my cellular connection. This is truly mobile blogging. I just wanted to be able to say I had done this.


This is a small sample of the endless fields of hay bales. Getting ready for winter is a big deal up here. Hundreds of square miles of hay bales extend in all directions. Preparing this for food for the animals in the winter is a major effort. We also saw fields of Canola and Wheat everywhere. Mostly dry prairie in the west but the moisture levels increased steadily as we drove east. Also, the more moisture, the rougher the roads. We observed that in our drive across the prairies. In the west where there is less rainfall the roads are smoother and nicer. When there is freezing and thawing of water on the ground they are rougher.



We passed another BIG wind electrical generating station at the location noted on the map. Electrical generation with wind seems to be a growing trend out here in the prairies both here and in the USA. We like that a lot. Making energy in harmony with Mother Nature. How great is that?

Glacier National Park

So far Glacier National Park is our favorite of all the places we have visited. We drove the "Going to the Sun Road" twice. It must be the most spectacular road in the United States. Every turn reveals a view of incredible glaciated mountains. Towers and peaks that look like they came from a move like "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Steep and sharp peaks of unimaginable beauty. Glaciers in the high elevations nestled among sharp rocky crages. As we drove over the Continental Divide the wild flowers were spectacular. We tried to get photos but they never do justice to fields of flowers on either side of spectacular waterfalls. The road itself is a marvel of engineering and tenacity. It took two years to build it back in the days when the only tools were pick axes and wagons. We just cannot imagine what that was like. Two stretches of the road were under repair probably as a result of rock slides or avalanches. We asked one of the workers if he ever got used to the scenery. He said, "No, it is never boring and it changes all the time."



We drove over to another less visited part of the park called "Many Glacier" where we saw a black bear feeding on berry bushes high up on the side of a mountain. We joined a crowd of people looking at him with binoculars. At the end of the road into Many Glacier there were dozens of people with high powered telescopes scanning the mountains for wildlife. This is grizzly bear country and many people, including us, hoped to see one from a long distance away through binoculars but they have eluded us so far. We think that food is so abundant this time of year in the mountains that they are quite happy in the remote areas. We have seen many deer and innumerable prairie dogs but that is about all.

Great Falls, Montana

We had to make a stop at Albertsons for a few grocieries and I made a connection to the net through my laptop using my Nokia 3650 cell phone as a modem. Cool!

There were two possible routes from Billings to Great Falls, Montana. One, the Interstate route was the more scenic. Knowing we were going to Glacier National Park, one of the most scenic places in North America, we chose the shortest route which was State Road 3. It turned out to be a very interesting drive.

We suspect someone in Ryegate has a good sense of humor. It is a place that might have one store and a few houses. In an empty field by the road was a sign that said, "Coming Soon, Hooters." You should also know that the one store in town also had a sign on it saying, "21st Annual Testicle Festival." That should also give you a clue. Now, I know that the Testicle Festivals are some sort of tradition of fringe gatherings so that might be real. Google Testicle Festival and you will see what I mean.

Just south of Judith Gap in a wide valley between two mountain ranges we came upon a massive construction project. It was a gigantic wind electrical generation facility. The wind generators were about three stories high and spread out across the valley. None were completely finished and they were in various stages of construction. There must have been about twenty or more towers. What a perfect place for this alternate form of electrical generation. It was an impressive sight. We have not had an opportunity to learn more about this project since we don't have an internet connection at this location here in Great Falls.

About half way from Billings to Great Falls we stopped for lunch at Wade's Cafe, an intersection truck stop cafe. Service was slow but the food was good. The most interesting things were the photos on the wall of Wade's Cafe demolished with a large truck in the middle of the wreckage. Seems that many years ago a big truck was coming down the hill and the brakes failed or the driver fell asleep, it was late at night and the Cafe had closed, and he blasted through the intersection right through the little place. No one was hurt because the Cafe was closed at the time. If you ever take Route 3 up from Billings stop in, have a burger and check out the photos on the wall in the souveneir area by the cash register.

Great Falls like Billings has some interesting features that we have seen all over Montana. One is the universal presence of little casinos on every corner. They are like seven elevens in Florida. They are infinitely varied in their size and shape and look like any other business except that they offer poker, keno, and other gambling along with the usual offerings of a bar or lounge.

The other universal feature of Montana other than mountains that we find interesting are the little coffee shops. Some of them are out in the middle of nowhere and many are in the cities. Most of them offer drive through coffee in a wide variety of forms and flavors. We saw one today offering Latte, Mocha, Expresso, and Big Train. I imagine Big Train would keep you going for the long haul.

Tomorrow we reach Glacier National Park. As I said in the beginning of this entry it is known as one of the most spectacular sights in North America. Are we excited about seeing it. You bet we are and yet we are still reliving the days spent with Winn and Donna, our friends in Billings. For just all around fun and good times that will be hard to beat. That hanging guard rail where the rock slide took out the Beartooth Scenic Highway still is vivid in my mind.

The Beartooth Mountains

Our friends Winn and Donna took us on a fantastic tour of the Beartooth Mountains yesterday. The Beartooths are only about 45 minutes from their home. With a short drive one can pass through Red Lodge, Montana which is a really interesting alpine village, to the Beartooth Mountains. The Beartooths are steep scenic mountains with many National Forest Roads through them. Mountain streams, glaciers, rock slides, wild flowers, good friends, who could ask for more. The photos are just a sample of the area. Fantastic day and we could not ask for better and more gracious hosts than the Hortons. We have had a wonderful few days with them and will remember these days for the rest of our lives. We hope to get together with them in the future. We even talked about taking a trip up the AlCan Highway to Alaska together in the future. Thanks Winn and Donna. You are the greatest.

For those who want to know more about the Beartooths, click here
. We could not take the Beartooth Scenic Highway because of a mud slide that had occured back in May. Our friends were camping in the area when the slide occured and Winn heard it during the night. The next morning the campground was evacuated and the road is still under repair. We were able to follow a forest service road to an observation point where we could see where the slide had taken out the highway in several places. One site was particularly dramatic where the only thing left of a section of the road was the guard rail dangling across where the road had been.

Anniversary

Yesterday was Winn and Donna's 34th Anniversary. They were kind enough to invite us along to dinner last night and we had a great time. During the day we had some interesting experiences while shopping and exploring. As time becomes available we will describe them in more detail.

Today we will try to take care of some more housekeeping and hope to work in some more sight seeing with the Hortons. We have a couple of choices as to what to do and see and will just have to see how our time works out. I just cannot say enough good things about our friends here in Montana. We could not find more gracious hosts than Winn and Donna. Winn is a western history buff and has told us a lot of interesting facts about the Lewis and Clark Expedition that passed through the Yellowstone Valley. He also travels a lot in the area with his work and knows the roads really well. Our stay in Billings has been a major highlight of the trip and we will always remember our good times here. After today we will make that final push up into Canada to our destination, the Banff and Jasper area of Alberta.

Billings Exploration

We spent a delightful day with our friends, Winn and Donna, exploring the Billings area. It is a real privilege to have such nice friends in this area to help us by pointing out history and features that we would have otherwise missed.







The highlight of the day was a visit to Pompey's Pillar. This is an isolated tower of rock in the Yellowstone Valley that contains the only physical evidence of Lews and Clarke's exploration of the area. Clark carved his name and the date, July 25, 1806, on the side of this rock tower. I asked the ranger how they knew that this was an authentic artifact and he replied that the carving was well documented in Clark's journal and that the signature was exactly in the location described by Clark. In the visitor center an older gentleman, who was obviously steeped in the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition in this area, gave Winn and I a detailed history of their travels. Pompy was the nickname that Clark gave to Sacagawea's son. A quote from a Lewis and Clark history site reads:

Sacagawea’s son Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, or “Pompy,” was three months old when the Corps of Discovery left Fort Mandan. His parents accepted William Clark’s offer to educate him, and he moved into Clark’s St. Louis home when he was six. At age 18, he went to Europe for six years with Duke Paul of Wuerttemburg, an enthusiastic early tourist of the American West. Returning to the U.S., Jean Baptiste became a mountain man and fur trader, and a guide whose clients included John C. Frémont. He later settled in California, and died in Oregon, en route to Montana, in 1866.

More info on Pompy can be found by clicking here.

We ended great day we had a barbecue at Winn and Donna Horton's beautiful home just outside Billings. We watched an amazing sunset on their pation while we ate a great meal. The temperatures that had been in the high 90s during the day dropped rapidly and a steady dry wind kept us nice and comfortable. Their home is located on top of one of the rolling grass hills in the area just west of Billings with a view that is priceless. Our plans are to spend a couple more days here before continuing on towards Canada. The big question for us right now is which route to take. There are many appealing places to see here in Montana and the route we take depends on whether or not we want to see those before going into Canada. We'll study the maps and look at the time it will take before deciding.

Montana

We are now in Billings, Montana. After a bit of a foul up by the campground last night we are setup. We called ahead and reserved a campsite at the KOA here in Billings. We pulled in and took care of the paperwork only to find a camper in our assigned site. We drove back to the office and the young lady went down and talked to the people in the site. It seems that the man was in the hospital due to a heart attack. He is fine now and his son lives here in Billings so they had family here also. They put us in a temporary site and gave us a 15 percent discount. We will have to move to another site today but that is ok.

Yesterday, we drove from Devil's Tower, Wyoming to Billings, Montana. It was a bit of a long drive for us. We usually do not like to do more than 250 miles a day but this was 300. That extra hour is a killer and makes the leg of the trip seem like a real push.

As we entered Montana the scenery changed from the choppy rolling hills we have been experiencing to very long and gentle climbs and descents. The views became even more vast allowing us to see very far over the treeless grassy hills. After driving for a while we were treated to the sight of snow capped mountains in the distance, the Big Horns. What a sight. We were pretty excited about seeing them for the first time. We made a gradual turn to the north but the Big Horns remained in view for a long time and we really enjoyed looking over to our left at those beautiful mountains. The Big Horns are the place where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hid out from the law at a place called the Hole in the Wall.

We took a very short side trip and visited the Custer Battleground Memorial. Our Golden Eagle Passport that lets us in any National Park or Memorial has more than paid for itself by now and we entered this special place with no charge. There is a small paved road that meanders through the battleground for many miles. Even though it is quite narrow and we had no idea if there was a turn around at the end we took it and we are glad we did. We were able to visit each key location of this famous event. There are clusters of grave markers in places where the soldiers fell. Many of them are marked with a simple, "US Soldier Fell Here." We also discovered that there is a National Cemetery at this location.

We read about the battle and read each sign at the key locations on the battleground. It seems that Custer had quite an ego and when he came up to the area from the south he spotted what he thought was a fairly good sized Sioux village down on the Greasy Grass Creek. In his typical style he made a quick decision to attack the village. He had attacked and burned a village a few years earlier even though the tribe led by Black Kettle had agreed to comply with the army's demands to lay down arms. He had slaughtered the entire village and burned it to the ground. The northern plains Indians were eager to get revenge on "Long Hair" as they called Custer. Click here for more info on that event.

From Custer's vantage point he was looking at only a small portion of the village since there was a large bluff by the creek that his the major portion of it. He may have only seen less than a third of it. Custer dispatched Major Reno to proceed to the south and attack from that side while he waved his hat and shouted, "Custer's Luck boys. We have found one of the biggest indian villages in Montana." Little did he know that the Sioux had gathered the entire Sioux Nation for a last ditch attack against the whites. When Custer rode over the bluff into the village he found that he had decided to attack the entire Sioux Nation led by the greatest war chiefs that they had. Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and several others.

Reno's attack from the other side of the village did not go well and his troops were wiped out rather quickly. This left Custer immersed in a battle of his own impestous origins with the entire Sioux Nation consisting of thousands of their greatest warriors. His troops of a couple of hundred or so did not stand a chance. The indians attacked ferociously, remember it was Custer who attacked their village first, and proceeded to wipe out Custer's attacking troops in less than half an hour. The entire slaughter of our boys was the result of George Custer's desire to elevate his status as an indian killer extraordinaire and his inflated ego. After reading the details of this famous event one can only say that the Sioux did what any group of people would do when attacked. They defended themselves. Their ferocity was just elevated by the fact that they had been attacked on all fronts by our army that had commited many atrocities against them. This is a dark stain on our history and the native american tribes are still paying a sad legacy for the way the white man treated them in the west. If you are interested in reading more there is a good account here.

Devil's Tower

The landscape is now changing from the vast prairies to much hillier terrain. We are skirting the Black Hills formation in western South Dakota. As we continue westward into Wyoming the hills are on each side of us as we follow a valley with very long grades and descents. The view is magnificent. We pass Sturgis, South Dakota where the annual motorcycle gathering takes place every August. This is a major event with bikers from all over the country meeting to show off their bikes and see others. One billboard announces that the Tuttle Family from Orange County Choppers will be there showing off their latest products. Billboards are under construction one after the other along I-90 with mostly Budweiser ads on them. That should give you an idea of what this event will be like. We pass on Sturgis and continue westward. Our goal is the Devil's Tower where we plan to spend the night.

Arriving at Devil's Tower we are astonished at this bizarre geological formation. It is the lava plug of an ancient volcano that is standing after the cone shaped mountain surrounding it was eroded away. This is a magnificent place and the tower has the feel of an ancient sacred place. We see it from our camper and drove to various observation points. This is a very special place. In one location we saw native american prayer cloths tied in a small tree. The tower and the surrounding lands are sacred to several indian tribes and we feel that ourselves. The location is fairly far from the interstate highway and is in the Black Hills National Forest. We saw several deer and as we look out of our front window in the Mothership we see a pasture of gently rolling hills with horses grazing as the sun sets on the Devil's Tower. There is an outdoor showing of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in a little while. We are going to attend for a bit to relive that old classic movie that was filmed here. We both are pretty tired because of the time changes and the driving so neither of us anticipates sticking it out for the whole movie. The movie starts at 9 pm Mountain Time and that is 11 pm Eastern Daylight Time which our bodies are still running on. But, how could we pass up an outdoor showing of that move at the Devil's Tower? I ask you, "How cool is that?"

Mount Rushmore

We reached Rapid City, South Dakota today. Our first stop was the obligatory visit to Mount Rushmore to see the presidents carved into the side of the mountain. We drove up to the entrance to the parking area as if we knew what we were doing. We had no idea if they could accomodate a fifty foot rig consisting of a 36 foot motorhome with a car in tow. As we paid our fee the lady grabbed a walkie talkie and said, "I have a really long RV with a car in tow." Someone on the other end responded and she told us to take the left lane and somone would meet us in a golf cart. Sure enough as we pulled in right past the main entrance to the park a guy in a golf cart circled in front of us like those "Follow Me" trucks at airports for airplanes. He led us to a parking place and for a moment we were in a dilema as to which we to go. We relaxed for a few minutes with the generator running and the A/C on and prepared to depart on a long hike. As we stepped outside we looked behind us and there were the presidents on the mountain side. We then walked about a hundred yards under a covered parking area where we took an elevator up one level to find ourselves at the main entrance. The Mount Rushmore concession is really setup well as we only had to walk a short distance. We took our pictures including some pictures of a Canadian family who asked us to take a group shot with the sculptures in the background. They did the same for us. We returned to the camper where we relaxed some more and ate some sandwiches. We talked about how amazing it was to be in our own motorhome with Mount Rushmore right behind us.

Interior, SD

We slept last night with an electric blanket on, for Bob, and right now we are running the furnace to take the chill out. It is 51 degrees outside. What an amazing change for us.

Today we will continue our westward trek and hope to see Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Monument, and the Devils Tower. Remember "Close Encounters of the Third Kind?"

Badlands

We stopped for the night in the Badlands of South Dakota. The landscape is amazing. We talked about pushing on to Rapid City but are glad we stopped here. We are camped on the White River in the very heart of the Badlands. We are now in the Mountain Time Zone and are two hours earlier than Eastern Daylight Time. The small town that is closest to us is Interior, South Dakota. There are 69 residents in the town. Click on the thumbnails for a larger view.

Chill

There is a chill in the air this morning. It is in the 50s here in Sioux Falls. I was tempted to turn on the heat in the Mothership but I know that turning on lights and cooking breakfast will warm it up. I am going to make coffee and enjoy it outside on the picnic table at our site. Getting ready to be underway will be a breeze today in these cool temperatures. The hight is only suppose to be in the low 70s.

USGS Visit

Today I took a tour of the USGS EROS Data Center. It was an interesting tour and I saw many familiar tools and heard familiar terminology. In spite of my love of geography I did not get a pleasant feeling returning to that corporate environment of geography. This is not to belittle the magnificent tools and data processing that is done at this wonderful facility but rather an observation of my own journey away from that world. I am more comfortable being a customer now than being part of the world that processes and delivers these data. I have great admiration for those who carry on with this mission but I am no longer part of it.

Sea of Corn

Traveling in a motorhome for an extended distance is much like navigating a ship across the sea. Stopping in campgrounds is similar to docking a ship in a port. Both vehicles are independent when in motion and connect to shore power when stopped. Traveling, as we are, completely across the country requires some similar navigation as well. Tonight we are docked north of severe weather down south in Des Moines, Iowa due to a decision to turn north three or four days ago based on a weather forecast. We are now on the cooler side of a strong cold front that is generating tornado watches south of us. Some luck and some good processing of available data made this happen. The analogy could be carried further as pointed out by my cousin who used to live in Nebraska. He compared the rolling hills covered by corn and soy beans to waves on the sea. It is a good analogy.

USGS Data Center

As we often do, we drove around the local area as much as possible after setting up our campsite. Ten miles down the road from our campground we found the Holy Grail of geographic data. This was one of the organizations we often dealt with to obtain satellite or aerial imagery. Click here to visit their web site. A Google search on USGS Eros Data Center reveals a wealth of geographic data available from them. Click here for the results of that search.

We convinced a very professional guard to let us take some pictures. They have public tours and we are debating about taking one of the tours. Both of us are exhausted from staying up late last night talking to some Canadians about their country while doing laundry. We will have to see how we feel today. We may need a day of rest to catch up. It sounds appealing but since I am no longer working in the field and we are more interested in viewing landscapes than analyzing them we may just rest or make a short hop towards the west.

We went into Sioux Falls last night and looked up the brother of Daniel who runs the Mexican Restaurant near our home. Luis, his brother, was very hospitable and we got to meet the whole family who are also very nice. They have very beautiful kids including a one month old daughter. We had a wonderful visit with them talking about the restaurant, family and friends. What a small world. For those who do not know there is a Mexican Restaurant that is near our home that we love. We have gotten to know the owner Daniel rather well and discovered that he has a brother, Luis, who runs a restaurant here in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. On the off chance that we might come here we got his name and number. When we arrived at the Puerta Vallarta Restaurant here in Sioux Falls Luis was not working but he came in to meet with his and introduced us to his family. We had a delightful visit with them and, of course, a great meal.

Yogi

We are at the Yogi Bear Campground in Brandon, South Dakota near Sioux Falls. Here are some maps.

Position Update - Lunch Break

Iowa

Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields.












Wind generator at Stuart, Iowa.

Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields. Corn fields, soy bean fields.

Power is Back

The power is back on. Our neighbor came over and gave us a "thumbs up." So, we are now cooling on shore power.

Heat

100 degrees. I think today was the first time I saw that on our car themometer. We stayed in Des Moines an extra day just to rest and run some errands. We drove downtown and explored the city but due to the heat we did not get out of our car except to shop. We are staying nice and cool in the Mothership but just a few minutes ago the power went off. We started out generator right away and are running it now to keep our A/C units going. The campground office reports that the power outage is for the entire area of Waukee, Iowa which is the small community we are in. They have no idea how long it will be but our generator is humming away happily. Glad I changed the fuel filters and checked it all out before we left.

Red Roads

We have been traveling the interstates for much of the trip. Blue roads on the map. We did take route 63 north from Columbia, Missouri to Des Moines, Iowa. A red road on the map. These roads offer a chance to drive through small towns and enjoy a more intimate view of the land. This sooner than planned turn to the north also started moving us away from the incredible heat that the area has been experiencing. It worked. Here are the temperatures yesterday of our departure point, Columbia, Missouri, and our destination Des Moines Iowa.

The area that we traveled consisted of rolling hills and beautifully maintained farms. We commented that we felt as though we were passing through an immaculately maintained park displaying farm life. Nothing was out of place. Everything was clean and meticulously maintained. There is a religious sect that live in the area of northern Missouri who, like the Amish, drive horse drawn carriges for transportation and we saw some of them traveling in the special lane reserved for them on highway 63. Click here for is the link to Wikipedia's overview of Missouri.

We departed from the planned route shown in the first graphic and took route 36 westward to pick up a part of the interstate leading into Des Moines since our destination campground was on the west side of the city. We had made reservations earlier using our cell phone. This slight change of plan was due to our first campground choice on the east side of the city being full. That one had 95 motorhomes coming in as a group which took all of the remaining sites.

We both needed to renew some prescription medicines and Missouri has no Walgreens but Iowa does. We called the prescriptions in on the cell phone and found the pharmacies to be unusually friendly and helpful. The store we called, the one closest to our campsite, didn't have all of the medicines that we needed and without asking they called the next closest store and coordinated getting the prescriptions filled for us.

Bob used his cellular connection and the laptop to locate the campground and the drug stores as well as directions to them. The trip went flawlessly and the pharmacies were extremely courteous and helpful. We have found this to be true of Walgreens no matter where we travel with one exception and that is the store closest to our home. We always have problems with that store and yet every other one we deal with on the road is an example of courtesy and helpfulness. We have talked a lot about that and think that it might be due to the very large customer load on that store.

We were both very tired and slept soundly here in Des Moines, Iowa. It is our first visit to Iowa and we will traverse it further today as we continue north. Click here for the Wikipedia link to Iowa. We were interested to read that western Iowa is an area of Loess hills that are hundreds of feet thick. What is Loess? Click here for the Wikipedia pages on that very interesting topic. Yes, wind does have something to do with it. That can be your assignment for today.