Saturday, June 21, 2014

Jayco Visitors Center

Actually it was Laporte, IN, not Lapointe, where we slept Thursday night.

We were driving right past the Jayco factory as we continued east (they made our trailer) so we stopped to visit.

And then drove and drove, making it home just before midnight on Friday.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Iowa to Indiana

A long day of driving today (Thursday).

We left the western edge of Iowa in the morning and drove straight across the state.

Lots of farm country with hills and trees, prettier than the flat prairie of South Dakota.  We also passed a large wind farm.

At Smokey D"s BBQ in Des Moines we had a delicious lunch and then pressed on.

Our goal today was to cross the Mississippi into Illinois, but once we passed the Quad Cities (4 small towns grouped together at the state borders), we wanted to get past Chicago.

Such a sudden change to an urban landscape as we crossed the Mississippi.  Quite a shock after all our rural and mountain travel.

We are parked at Walmart at Lapointe, Indiana, tonight,  only 7 1/2 hours from home!

LIW map

Mary Ingalls

Charles

Ingalls claim shanty

De Smet, SD

If you read last year's adventures, you know that Mom is a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan.  She persuaded the rest of the family to take a small detour north yesterday before leaving South Dakota.

The Ingalls family finally settled in De Smet, SD, which is the Little Town on the Prairie of the books.  Charles ("Pa") was an important founder of the town.

It was interesting to see the locations of the various places mentioned in the books, but not many original buildings are left.

We went to the cemetery to see and pray at the family graves, and drove past  (the replica of) Pa's claim shanty on the Ingalls' original claim.

We had lunch in town and then headed out on the road again.

Now we are just trying to get home.  We drove south along the Missouri river (which is flooding north of here) into Iowa, where we spent the night at another nice little RV park.

The weather is a little unsettled with strong winds here and severe thunderstorms to the west.  There was a tornado yesterday in South Dakota.  We hope to miss anything serious as we continue home across the plains.

Famil-E-Fun

Nice place in Mitchell, SD, with a pool, mini golf, and a jail.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Farewell to Custer

This bison was at the exit to say goodbye as we left on Tuesday.

We headed east for a shortish drive to Wall Drug for more of their delicious doughnuts (and 5¢ coffee) for the road.

While we enjoyed Custer, our last minute reservation meant that we had no electricity for the past 3 nights so we were looking for an RV park to plug in to and recharge our batteries.

We also hoped to find somewhere to get a new spare tire for the trailer.

We found both in Mitchell, SD.

We checked into the Famil-E-Fun RV park which is a lot nicer than you'd think by the name.  It's quiet and shady with friendly people and nice facilities.

There is also a Cabelas here which made the boys and Dad happy.  While they went to visit there, Mom stayed back to enjoy the shady breeze, do laundry, and blog.

Blogging has been quite frustrating at times this trip.  It is all being done through the Blogger app on Mom's smartphone.  At least 2 or 3 posts have been eaten by it and it won't let her post more than one picture per post.

Hoping to get further east today!

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Center lake

Baby bison

Monday was a day to relax.  We never left the state park.

We drove the wildlife loop hoping to see some baby buffalo, a sight we were disappointed not to have seen at Yellowstone.

Custer state park is home to a large herd of bison numbering about 1300.  We happily came across a large group of mothers and babies on both sides and across the road.  The babies were nursing, following, and lying down with their mothers.

We got a good long look at them as they were blocking the road for some time, and also saw a buffalo using a wallow.

As we went along the loop we saw several other buffalo wallows along with various deer, burros and pronghorns.

Back towards our campsite to Center lake for the boys to swim (with the baby geese!) and to enjoy the sun by the water.

At our trailer we cooked lunch and later dinner and spent the afternoon dozing, reading, and playing with Legos (that was the boys).

In the evening Dad beat us all in a cutthroat game of Monopoly.

A lovely relaxing vacation day.

Giant potato in Deadwood!

Exhibit hall

And again, Mt. Rushmore with boys

With boys

Mt. Rushmore

And last

And again

Needles highway again

Needles highway

Custer State Park, SD

Father's Day

A wonderful day on Sunday.  We turned the trailer around by the easy solution of going the wrong way around the road.

A beautiful sunny day again.  The boys were excited about Dad's presents: a real Stetson he picked out in Cody before we left town, a Yellowstone travel coffee mug, and a statue of a reclining bison from Yellowstone.

After delicious homemade egg and cheese sandwiches, we headed for Mt. Rushmore.

Without the trailer we were happy to drive up Needles highway through the switchbacks and narrow one car tunnels.  The views were stunning all the way.

Mt. Rushmore itself is quite remarkable.  One of those places that need to be seen in person to appreciate how impressive it is.  There was also a lot of information about the presidents depicted in the exhibit hall.

Mom bought a book about Lewis and Clark and we all had Thomas Jefferson ice cream made from his recipe, apparently the first one in the U.S.

We then drove out through Rapid City to Sturgis and then Deadwood.  We ate dinner at the Deadwood Social Club, above the saloon where Wild Bill Hickock (not to be confused with Buffalo Bill Cody) was shot.

The paintings on the walls at the Social club suggest how "social" it was at one time. (All stictly PG).

Back to Custer park to sleep, with a relaxing day planned for Monday.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

The road into Buffalo, Wyoming

Snow in the mountains

Adventures are not just pony rides in May sunshine.

The weather turned cold and wet as we set off from Cody on Saturday, our day of adventures.

A flat tire on the trailer as we rolled into Tensleep* was the first trouble.  It had shredded on the downhill grade into town.  Fortunately AAA is available in small western towns as the wrench provided with the spare was inadequate.  We also were happy to see that we had pulled over next to the espresso shop and bakery.

Next adventure was crossing the mountains of the Bighorn National Forest in the SNOW at about 9600 feet with hairpin turns and steep grades.

The cold pouring rain and the delay in Tensleep made us decide not to stop at Devil's Tower but to push on to our reserved site at Custer state park near Mt. Rushmore.

It was dark and rainy, the various GPS devices kept giving conflicting routes and the paper maps we had were unhelpful.

We went for the shortest and seemingly fastest route.  This adventure was pulling the trailer up and down the Black Hills in the rain with no clear idea of where we were going, but we finally found the park entrance.

That's when things got really interesting.  It was 10 at night and all the park offices were closed.  We had no map.  The roads were wet and unlighted. 

We followed the signs to our campgrounds and suddenly were brought up short by the warning sign that ahead were low narrow tunnels that the trailer would not get through.

We didn't know if we would turn off before any of these tunnels.  The next 4 miles were quite stressful as we negotiated more hairpin turns on a narrow road with very few places where we could turn around.

Well we did make our turnoff before the tunnels and found our campsite in the dark.  The last excitement was that there was no way to back into our site so we just pulled straight in and went to bed, leaving that problem til morning light.

*Tensleep is where in 1980 our friend's bus broke down on a school trip.  The class spent 4 days there and never made it to Yellowstone.
Tensleep is also at a longitude similar to where we had mechanical trouble on last year's trip.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

The rodeo!

15 year old mandolin player

Cody Cattle Company

Cody, Wyoming

OK, so we haven't gotten very far east yet.

Cody was named after Buffalo Bill Cody who founded the town.  We really like this state park named for him. 

This is still very beautiful country, and very Western.

Yesterday evening we went to the chuckwagon dinner at the Cody Cattle Company where we had good food and excellent music, followed by the rodeo. We had a lot of fun and will miss this town.

We plan a busy day today, driving towards Mount Rushmore with some stops along the way.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Heading east

We left Yellowstone this morning (Friday) and are now hooked up again at Buffalo Bill state park outside of Cody.

We hope to enjoy the chuckwagon dinner and rodeo here tonight.

We are so glad we were able to have this opportunity to have visited Yellowstone.  Truly this part of the country is the epitome of the American West.  Our pictures can't begin to show the beautiful vistas at every turn of the road. 

Still sunny and warm (more like summer at this lower elevation) but with a heavy wind today.

Grand Teton national park

Grand Teton with boys

Jackson Hole

Elk antlers are collected by the local boy scouts

Farewell to Yellowstone


Last view of Yellowstone Lake

Fishing Bridge

The view from Fishing Bridge.

The RV park here is I think the only site with full hookups.  It has been described as a parking lot but we disagree.

The sites are small and close together, but there are trees and wildlife. It is right in the center of the park near Yellowstone lake and river at about 7800 feet elevation.

Boys at Fishing Bridge

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

More bison

Old faithful erupts

Old Faithful

Tuesday we headed out to see Old Faithful which lived up to its name, erupting just as we arrived and again 90 minutes later after we had a chance to explore the Inn and have some lunch.

We took our seats to wait along with hundreds of others on the benches around the geyser.  It was a most impressive sight, with water shooting dozens of feet into the air.

The weather became a little less perfect as we watched the storms roll in across the mountains.  Patrick found National Park Monopoly at the visitor center which became a perfect rainy day activity.
Later Dad grilled up some delicious steaks and potatoes between the raindrops.

Have we mentioned the patches and piles of unmelted snow everywhere?  It's still quite cold at night, and snow is in the forecast for Saturday!

Pics to follow.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Yellowstone

We arrived Monday afternoon.

I don't have the words to describe this beauty.  Everywhere you look is another  vista:  mountains with and without snow, lake, river, waterfall, tall pine trees, and hillsides recovering from wildfires.  The various shades of green and blue and white along the mountain, water, hill, and sky.

And there is wildlife.  We were really that close to the bison (from the inside of our truck) which have been all along the side of the road.  We have also seen elk, male and female, swans, and bear tracks.  Patrick thinks he saw a mountain goat.  And we've only been here one afternoon!

The weather has been perfect so far.  Sunny and warm but not hot.  Cold at night but we have electricity (and therefore heat) at our campsite.

What we don't have is cell service, so while this is being written Tuesday morning, we're not sure when it will get posted.

There is also a glitch with the phone on which these posts are written.  Trying to add more than one picture per post makes the app shut down.  So there will be multiple posts just with a picture.

Canyon and waterfall

Bison

View from Mud volcano

See how close!

Yellowstone Lake

Entering the park