Day 10 (August 15):

We left Minnesota behind and traveled on to the Wisconsin Dells. Before we left the campground, Tyler googled a train museum called Mid-Continental Railroad Wisconsin and it was pretty much in the same area we were going so we stopped in to see it. Just as we arrived to the little depot, we saw a Baldwin 1300, a small diesel switcher (Tyler is supplying me with this:) pulling back into the depot after taking a group on a short trip. We looked around at all of the engines and train cars in the display and some that weren't on display but were on the tracks further down the line. There were passenger cars and even an old refrigerated car (they used ice) from the 1800s. I thought the engines and cars were pretty...Tyler thought that was funny. He is simply looking at their power and mechanics and other than that he can't explain it.

We arrived at our campground in the late afternoon, set up camp and then left to find a restaurant. After a couple of dead-ends (one place wanted $15 dollars for a salad...you have got to be kidding me) we found a cool place on Lake Dellton called Port Vista. There was a huge deck sitting on the hill above the lake and we sat outside and ate a 32oz. steak dinner for two with all of the trimmings (for a meer $24) ...or we tried.

We drove through downtown Wisconsin Dells and it is a complete tourist trap for people with kids. We got away from there as soon as possible and got back to camp where we were promptly set upon by the most blood thirsty mosquitoes I have encountered since my visit to New Hampshire years ago. One of the workers there told said they are the state bird and I believe her! We doused ourselves with off and enjoyed a good fire and then went to bed. It had been a long day.

Day 9 (August 14)

     Well today was pretty uneventful after the week we have had seeing the sites although we did see the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. I don't know why they built it but it is more than 100 years old and has been rebuilt a couple of times. They decorate the front with corn and corn shocks, etc. Here are a few pictures:

After that exhilarating experience we headed east toward Minnesota, stopping at a couple of antique stores along the way. We got to our destinatio of Rochester , Minnesota at around four and then set up camp and went to dinner. We saw a lot mor windmills in South Dakota and Minnesota and even saw some  windmill turbine blades being hauled on the interatate. Each blade is HUGE!

Oh! And by the way...we finally saw two herds of buffalo in South Dakota (on a farm of all things). It was actually pretty funny!


We arrived in Rochester, Minnesota (where Mayo Clinic is) and set up camp. We were next to the pool and the play area...and you know what that means...noise. We went into town and had dinner, visited the book store there and then came back and went to bed.

A storm blew up and just about blew the tent away! But we didn't really get wet. In the morning we were awakened by 3 boys playing (loudly) in the play area at 6:30 a.m....where were their parents?
That is really the first time anything like that has happened so we were lucky.

Day 8 ( August 13):

      Last night we went into the town of Hill City not too far from the Black Hills Monuments and our campground. As we neared town we were surrounded by more and more bikers that had come to South Dakota for the big rally in Sturgis. Many of them take a week's vacation or more and spend a day or two in Sturgis and then the rest traveling around out west. The closer you get to Sturgis the more bikes you see. As we neared the town of Hill City( 50 miles from Sturgis), there were hundreds of bikes lining the streets. They even shut down the main drag in most of these little towns just so the bikers can park their bikes.

      Since we were there to eat, we parked and walked through the bikes to get to The Alpine Restaurant and Hotel where we heard they served a great filet mignon. Tyler stopped to take pictures to show the guys and I enjoyed watching the people. There were young couples of course but many of the bikers were older. We visited with one couple about our age who were from Iowa while waiting for our table at the restaurant. They do the rally every year and love it.

    


 This morning we were up at 5:30 a.m., showered and left to spend the day site-seeing. We started with going up the Needles Highway to Mount Rushmore. We drove through several small tunnels and rock formations surrounded by tall pines and meadows.

  We saw some deer and chipmunks but none of the bison that had been promised. The Black Hills are perhaps the most pleasing scenery I have encountered on this trip. The early morning sun and shadows made it even more interesting and we actually had to turn on the heater to stay warm. We enjoyed seeing the monument from a distance. It really is a lot smaller than I thought it would be though.

    

 We left the Black Hills and headed for The Badlands. While the Black Hills are mostly granite, the Badlands are sandstone and are similar to what we saw in Wyoming although not as colorful and their formations are perhaps more interesting sometimes thinner , coming to what apears to be a razors edge and then sometimes they are very rounded like a mound.  

 The weird formations make them look like something from a Star Trek episode. Alongside the rock formations runs a vast plain where we were again told we could see buffalo and we did, traveling down a dirt road we saw 1 all by himself down in the basin and then three on the grassland. Not exactly what I was expecting but we did get to see some and from a great distance. Their heads and necks are absolutely gigantic.

  





 What we weren't expecting to see actually popped right up in front of us...prairie dogs! They were funny and playful just like you would imagine. They really aren't that afraid cars or humans and must be very prolific little things because once we knew what to look for we could see that they seemed to be everywhere.

     After a long drive through The Badlands we headed across the state to Mitchell ,South Dakota,  dinner and rest. 

Day 7 (August 12):

   We got up early and left Lander, Wyoming and drove east through the high plains of Wyoming. I have been amazed at all of the colors I have seen on this trip. When I think of my paints and how I mix them I think of all of these very same colors I have attempted (that is my favorite part of painting)...I have been thinking God is the most wonderful artist of all and all we can do is imitate Him. The plains have the most beautiful golden grass and it covers the ground as far as the eye can see there...and one can see a long long way because there are very few trees or towns to get in the way. We saw a lot of pronghorns (antelope) today.

     We had hoped to see some bison but no luck so far. We met a man at a restaurant at noon and he said we would probably see some around the Black Hills National forest where we are staying tonight. 

     We were just leaving our restaurant when Tyler spotted a long coal train from Burlington Northern Santa Fe with 2 engines in the front and two in the back. It was at a coal company. They were loading countless cars with coal as far as the eye could see. 

    

 












  We decided to visit the Crazy Horse Monument before going on to our campsite later in the afternoon. We got to Custer which is not far from there and saw hundreds of Harleys parked in the street. We have been seeing people on Harleys all week because the Black Hills Bike Rally is going on here in SD and it is a HUGE deal.

     We had to stop for construction traffic today and there were bikers behind us and Tyler got out to talk to them (sometimes you wait for 15-20 minutes for the pilot car to come to take you through to the other side of construction. The bikers were from Germany and had rented bikes and an RV and were biking across the west to Sturgis. Amazing! People literally come from all over the world for this. When we got to the Crazy Horse Monument and Museum there were hundreds more of them and they are all very courteous and friendly. Most of them are 40 years old and above:)...mostly above.

Crazy Horse is absolutely huge. Of course they only have his face completely finished but we saw a model of how it will look when it is finished and it is impressive. Tyler did a photo of the model sculpture with the mountain face in the background.

      We saw a video in the theater there (with all of the bikers) and it said that the presidents on Mount Rushmore would fit in his head. It is going to be a long time before it is finished but it will be the biggest sculpture of all time when it is finished. The video went on to tell about Crazy Horse and how the monument came to be. The museum is the National Native American Museum and is really kind of a piece of art itself and has many Indian artifacts and artistry. We really enjoyed our visit there.

We drove on into the park and found our campsite which is very nice. In fact I would say it is the nicest one we have been in yet. Our site is shaded and rather large so we are looking forward to hanging out this evening...perhaps with the bikers next door. On to dinner and our evening plans.  (we tried to add photos but they wouldn't load so we'll try again tomorrow.)

Day 6 (August 11):

View from Signal Mountain Lodge

     We were up at 6:00, packed up and went for breakfast at the lodge. Then we headed to Jackson Hole. It is about thirty miles from Signal mountain. And every few miles there was a sign that said “Wildlife on Road” with silhouettes of moose, elk and buffalo but did we see anything? Well...another pronghorn but that was all. It was even the right time of day...early morning. I am still amazed at the amount of sage growing on the rolling hills. Sometimes it is so thick that it looks like a silvery-green river flowing through the other grasses.

     We arrived in Jackson Hole at about 8:30 a.m. and went to a gas station where Tyler met a guy who he called Jackson Hole's Ed Neves. He knew all of the locals and told Tyler he wanted to go see the geek at Staples. He could fix the camera because there was nothing he couldn't fix. We arrived at Staples and Tyler told them he was told to ask for the Geek. They said “oh okay” with a smile and then paged him. He helped Tyler find a new USB cord...and it worked! He uploaded all of the pictures to the laptop so now we can take more great pics to bring home. I know you are all ecstatic:)!

Elk Antler Arch in Jackson Hole

     After resolving that problem we went in to downtown JH to do a little bit of site-seeing and window shopping. We noticed there were art galleries everywhere and asked about it at one of the galleries and the owner said JH is fifth in the US for art galleries. We enjoyed looking at the paintings and sculptures. Most of them were traditional renditions, impressionist (which I love) and then some more modern Native American-type work.

     We left Jackson Hole at about 11:30 and headed back to Lander, where we had spent Monday night still looking for the elusive wildlife:) but seeing none. We drove along the bluffs I looked down I could see a creek winding its way, like a snake through the meadows. The vegetation around the creek and the pasture land was lush and was various shades of green. We stopped in Dubois and had lunch, continuing on to Lander. 

     We arrived in Lander sometime after 4:00, set up camp and waited for a storm that never came:). It sure looked like it was going to rain but all there was in Lander was a lot of wind. We rested for awhile and then went into downtown for dinner and a movie. The only movie showing was “The Sorcerer's Apprentice” and there were lots of families with kids:). I thought it was a cute movie, nothing awe-inspiring but Tyler said about a quarter of the way into it...”Wake me up when its over...”

Oh well...it was something to do with our evening. We went out into the country a ways after that to look at the stars. The night sky is just amazingly beautiful out here. Tomorrow we are on to South Dakota!

Day 5 ( August 10, 2010)

Rock Formations in Western Wyoming 

     Well today was a challenging one. Our camera isn't working correctly with the card. We had it checked in both Lander and in Dubois and they said the card is reading as though it is empty. We aren't sure what we are going to do about it but when you are on a cartrip of a lifetime you need a good camera. We have been taking pictures on it anyway because we can see them on the camera but we are almost out of space. We are also using our phones and then bluetoothing them to the laptop which works but their pictures are not quite as clear and we can't zoom in.

  

Putting that aside, we had a great drive through more of Wyoming toward the Grand Tetons. We drove and drove and drove through beatuiful sedimentary rock formations that were almost every color you could think of...red, green, brown, even purple. I took pictures on my phone so I could show you! 

The Grand Tetons from a distance

After awile the sage and grass gave way to meadows of wildflowers and grass surrounded by pine trees. We could see the Grand Tetons as they played hide and seek with us for the next hour or so before we finally entered the park.  

     We arrived at the Grand Teton National Park (it costs $25 to get in) and then drove slowly through some road construction. They have guide cars out here that take you through the construction zones if they are longer ones. We saw a hoarde of people looking at something so we got out and saw a moose lounging on the side of a slow-moving creek. She was just laying there in the shade, chewing her cud. You could barely see her and she looked pretty bored with all of us.

     We then drove on a road that was being tarred and Tyler kept saying things like...”oh no!” and “poor car”. It was pretty stinky and messy. The good news was that we were driving around Jackson lake which is a huge lake that is nestled right at the base of the Grand Tetons. One of the most striking features of these mountains is that they just jut right up out of the surrounding meadows and forest. There are no foothills.

     This was our big night staying at the Signal Mountain Lodge cabin ! And it was beautiful! We ate an early dinner, took a walk and then went to bed. We still seem to be on Ohio time as we tend to get up at six and to bed by nine:).  

Day 4 ( August 9):

     We left Estes Park at about 7:30 a.m. We drove out of the Colorado Rockies and into the Wyoming Plains, headed for Cheyenne. Tyler wanted to see the Cheyenne Depot Railroad Museum. When we got there we found that the museum itself was only a movie and pictures and a few artifacts. He had wanted to see the roundouse because it had some static displays of locomotives BUT the people who ran the roundhouse had gone on vacation this week...of all weeks. All of them...at the same time! Duh!

 We did get to see a “Big Boy” which is the biggest steam locomotive ever built. It is over 132 feet long and was used by Union Pacific Railroad to pull long trains from Cheyenne to Utah.

It was pretty cool to get to see this! It was huge. Tyler took pictures from every conceivable vantage point and I am not going to put them all on here but here are a couple of the better ones.

     We also visited a couple of antique stores and wandered around for awhile. Cheyenne is a pretty town with lots of trees and brick buildings downtown. We left there and drove across the rolling plains . The plains roll and dip and some of the higher hills are graced by huge windmills standing side by side above grass and sage. Many herds of cattle (mostly Angus and Angus-cross if appearances mean anything) dot the landscape. There are also horses grazing, as well. We did see pronghorns grazing not far fro the road. I think I got one good picture of them. They look somewhat like our whitetailed deer from a distance but have white on their bellies and up their sides a little and their horns are very dark and prong-like (hense the name:).

     Driving across the plains is not as boring as one might think because it is so unusual to us Ohioans. There are very few trees but the landscape itself is a sort of natural piece of art, where the green, rust, brown and gold swirl and dip, as if someone ran through it with his/her fingers. Every once in a while there were beautiful reddish sedimentary rock formations that a description cannot do justice. I think they were my very most favorite land formation, yet.

  In the distance we could see rain falling from the sky and the purplish mountains (later to look more brown) rising in the distance waiting there for us (even though we were already at 8,000 ft.). We had been worried about our little Honda and how it would do, but it just zipped right along through the ups and downs of traveling through the various terrains.

     We ate lunch in Rawlins, Wyoming and then headed across the Sweetwater Basin to Lander. The beautiful landscape continued but became drier the further north and west we went. We got to Lander at about 4:30 and set up camp just as a huge wind came up. It blew for awhile as a storm passed to the south of us...and I mean it BLEW! Dust everywhere!

  

We decided to go to have an early dinner and then rest before the stars came out (that was one of the big reasons I wanted to come out west...to see the stars in the huge sky they have out here). The owner of the campsite said you can even see the space station easily out here at night. We went to dinner at a great place called Gannett Grill. It was very good. We took a walk down the main street and back. It was a typical farm town with a few art galleries and restaurants here and there.




The movie theater was sort of like the Mayflower except it still had the marquee above it...pretty 1950s. We came back to rest before going stargazing. Looking forward to that.

Day 3 (August 8):

     Okay...lets back up a little and talk about last night (August 7). The campground is pretty primitive, has no showers or running water but its worth it to see the views from the park, itself.

We were in bed by nine after two long days of driving. We got a good night's rest with much much cooler weather (45-50 degrees) and some rain in the night. It was so quiet and then started raining and all we could hear was the rain and some light wind whistling through the pines overhead. It was a very peaceful feeling laying there in the warm, dry tent. Don't worry Virginia, we saw no bears! But we did see a herd of elk in the meadow below the moraine we are camping on. The only word I can think of to describe them and the mountains they live in is 'majestic'.

     In the morning we were up at 6:00 a.m. Mostly because we both had to go to the bathroom. The restrooms are sophisticated:) outhouses and ours happens to be down a steep hill so I REALLY have to go to walk down there because the walk back uphill in this altitude is killer!

We left the campground and went to Estes Park to use the showers and do some laundry...and I could do some texting and get online using the wi-fi at the local cafe to update this and check facebook just in case anyone is trying to get in touch with us. We had breakfast and visited with the young waiter who happened to be from Moscow. After that we drove out to the park and did some site-seeing, taking pictures of the mountains an looking for wildlife. We weren't very successful. I told Tyler that I really want to see a bear just as long as s/he doesn't see me:). We took a walk on the Sprague Lake Nature Trail and got some great pictures of some of the bigger mountains with the lake in the foreground. They were absolutely breathtaking...I don't know how else to describe them.

     As I mentioned before, we've been wanting to see some animals in the meadows or the mountainsides (bighorns) but we hadn't seen anything but some chipmunks and Tyler was getting antsy. We met an older woman on the trail who said the elk had moved to higher ground last week because it had been unseasonably warm so we were lucky to have seen them at all. We drove up and down and around the park, looking for elk or goats or even bears. We stopped at every conceivable overlook, etc. but all we found were those little chipmunks hopping around on the rocks.

     When we got back to the camp at bout 3:45, I went down to the “restroom” and there were people snapping photos...always a telltale sign that there is something worthwhile to see. You guessed it...three young deer were grazing under a cove of trees right next to someone's campsite. All I had with me was my phone so I took a video and a couple of pictures but I am not sure how they will turn out. Tyler went down there and took the camera and got a great shot of an eight point buck. Later the deer walked right past our campsite and were about 20 feet from me. Todd would have loved it!

     We rested in the shade in our chairs and enjoyed the breeze through the pine trees at our campsite and then left to go back to town for dinner. The problem with that is that Estes Park is sort of like a small Gatlinburg...there are people everywhere and parking is a problem. We were hoping to find a sports bar where we could watch the Hall of Fame Game (Bengals vs Cowboys).

     We went to a local pizza place and watched the first quarter of the game and then decided to post this and go back to camp and relax. We had a fun day but did a lot of walking and driving and we are ready to relax before going to bed. Tomorrow it is on to Wyoming.

Day 2

Day 2:

     We had a good night's rest in the one and only tent in the whole campground. We both showered, took down the tent, etc. (or Tyler did:) and left for Milton's Cafe in downtown Lawrence before 7:00a.m. The downtown area is lovely with lots of high-end shops and eateries. I kept telling Tyler that I thought it was one of the prettiest towns I had ever seen (sort of Bruce-like he thought). Some of the locals told us we picked the two best places to eat while we were there...of course that was because Tyler had done lots of research before we even left home:).

      We set off for the plains and I thought what would be lots of boring flat land but I was surprised to find eastern Kansas to be much prettier that I thought it would be. What I saw instead were pretty rolling hills of tall grass with sedimentary rock formations exposed by wind erosion, trees that were bent from the wind of the plains, herds of cattle, scores of slowly turning windmills and the occasional oil rig. There weren't many fields of crops because the rock was too close to the surface and so the soil can't be tilled there (I learned that reading the tourist info at a rest stop:)

     Later in the afternoon when we were in western Kansas, the landscape flattened out some and there were more crops (corn, beans and sunflowers) and many huge granaries. We could see for miles and miles as we drove down the interstate. The sky looked never-ending but by now my mind was on what was up ahead in Colorado....seeing the Rocky Mountains.

We entered Colorado at 1:34 mountain time. Amazingly...the mountains were nowhere in sight! Flat as a pancake!  About two hours later we could see the mountains partially obscured by clouds and rain. We arrived in Lyon, Colorado on the northwest side of Denver and in the foothills of the Rocky Mountain National Park and ate at another restaurant Tyler found online called Oskar Blues. Another homerun by Mr. Research!

      

Day One - The Longest Drive

August 6, 2010

What: Tyler and Mary Beth's Western Camping Expedition

Traveling by ...that's right...our mighty little Honda Accord (packed to the gills:)

Camping Expedition

     Tyler and I are finally on our westward ho vacation! We have been looking forward to this for two years. Tyler planned it...and might I say he was very good at it! He began planning in earnest several months ago and has amassed what amounts to a book of maps, dining sites, wi-fi connections, campgrounds, and points of interest.

     We made great time, leaving home just before 6:00 a.m. today and getting to Highland, Ill. At around 10:30 central time. We went to a place called Blue Spring Cafe in Highland and had lunch while using their wi-fi connection to get on the internet so I could finish up my last BGSU assignment. We left Highland bragging about what good time we had made as we were just 30 miles or so out of St. Louis. Then...you guessed it...we ran into construction traffic and crawled along in a traffic jam for about 45 minutes and 4 miles.

     Not long after that we came to the mighty Mississippi and the St. Louis Arch where we stopped to marvel and take pictures. The park surrounding the arch itself was very pretty with tree-lined walkways that somehow softened the approach to the arch and the river. I remembered my grandmother telling me about her visit to the arch back in the 1960s and thought the park must have looked much different then as the trees would have been much smaller, giving less shade. There were lots of visitors...many families with small children hopping around on the trail.

     After leaving St. Louis behind we crossed the Missouri River twice during our trek across Missouri's rolling hills (much like southwestern Ohio around Cincinnati and Oxford). The weather was warm but the skies were blue and dotted by only a few puffy clouds.

     We drove on and arrived in Kansas City at around 5:30. I had always pictured KC as a very flat city and it was quite the opposite. It was hilly almost like Cincinnati.   

     We drove on to Lawrence and ate at a GREAT restaurant called Free State Brewery.  After that we came to the campsite and went to bed! The tent was actually quite comfortable for those of you who are wondering:)