Mount Vernon for the Weekend

Yesterday, we made the 442 mile trek starting from Mitchell, South Dakota, crossing most of Minnesota and ended our long day of travels to a warm welcome from our friends in Mount Vernon, IA. Thats the way to end your day. Supper waiting on the stove and friends happy to see you. Who could ask for more!

The only way it could have possibly been better would have been if we had had the opportunity to see something startling and really unique along the way.

OH! Hey! Wait a damn minute!.....

Weren't we in Mitchell, South Dakota?

Isn't that where the .............. most unique building in the entire country is.............. the one that draws people from all around the world!

Yes it is and we got to see it!

"THE CORN PALACE"

It really is a must see.

There's real live Corn Starts there!

Here they are working on their latest expose'

Here is a shot of the 1892 original Corn Palace!

Theres a lot of "Corny" history here! (sorry, I had to say it)

Inside there is a large Gymnasium and Stage that act as the towns performance space!

Here I am working on, with I mean, one of the older ones

Heres a little clip of the Palace

South Dakota

This is one view from the hike that brings you to the base of the granite presidential monument

Tuesday night we made it to Reed Point, Montana. Montana is my favorite state of all we have visited on this trip. Oregon coast was also very great but different and much busier.

Weds we drove out of Montana, through the northeast portion of Wyoming and into South Dakota. We have covered a lot of Wyoming territory on this total trip. Been in the state and cutting across three individual times. Twice in Yellowstone.

We landed in Piedmont, SD which is the next town down I-90 after Sturgis.


Now I have always wanted to attend the summer motorcycle rally there and it happened about 4 weeks ago. We saw folks on the highway heading there before the rally and then we met a bunch of them heading home after the rally in a wide variety of places around the country.


I finally made it there but there was no rally just a quaint little SD town that, I'm sure, gets quite inundated during the bike rally. That rally supports a lot of businesses in and around Sturgis. And most of them were telling of the much lower numbers of participants this year in comparison to years past. Gas Prices were the assumed culprit.

Anywho, it was great for us (as we were with family) to have it as a quaint little town with the icons and remnants of the rally ever present.
We moved down to Piedmont and found our campsite just after 9PM. The reason we chose this RV park was that it had a heated pool for the kids to swim in and they did. There were only 4 or 5 RVs in the entire park (season is almost over) so the kids went skinny dipping and had a ball while Meg and I enjoyed a cocktail together at pool side after a longs days drive.


We got up early this morning (Thursday), a little after 6:30 and started to get ourselves moving so that we could make it to Mount Rushmore and the Badlands National Park during the day and make it to our camp in Mitchell, SD before dark. We did it all except make it before dark. We thought we were on track to make it by 8 PM. That would get us there right after sunset and give the kids a chance to swim for 2 hours tonight as we found a place with a water park three story slide into the indoor pool. We forgot about the time zone change. We made it just a little after dark began but it was 9 PM instead. So I set up camp and Meg took the kids to the pool. When I finished I went to the pool and swam and slid on the slide for twenty minutes before the pool closed, the life guard booted us and it was time for us to return to the RV for the night.

The day was just picture perfect in SD today and the temps never got over 75. We took advantage and got outside as much as we could.











Tomorrow, we are excited that we will make it all the way to Central Iowa, just east of Cedar Rapids to visit with our good friends Jeff, Kara and Kai for the second time this summer for Friday night and Saturday Night and we will head out on Sunday to make it somewhere in PA. We saw them on the way back east in June and it is great to visit with them this end of August. We have driven 1700 plus miles since we left Washington State on Sunday and it has been fun but with long hours in the RV included each day. Feels like we are really pressing to get Michaela home for Tuesday. But then again not to pressed, I guess as we will have a nice and welcomed break this weekend. in Iowa.

Tuesday in Missoula!

Well, at least I can say that I lived out one childhood dream on this trip. I made it to Jellystone Park and hung with Yogi and BOO BOO!

The main highlight of the day was that Michalea, with Uncle Jaspers help, mastered riding her two wheel bike today. Like she had been doing it all along.























On the back stage, we had the highlight of visiting the Missoula Outfit of Federal Smoke Jumper Center. Here wet met and learned about the people and the jobs they do throughout the year in the forests in Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. Cool gig attended to by very fit individuals.

Last night we camped in Reed Point, Montana and we are currently on our way to Sturgis, SD. The home of one of the largest and routiest motorcycle rallies in the country. Unfortunately we are three weeks late so it ought to be just a bit more calm then the real deal.

Tomorrow the Black Hills and Mt Rushmore and then the Badlands National Park.

Just a Little Bit!

Last night, we were heading for Moses Lake, WA but we made it as far as Cle Elum, WA, at just about 9:30 when we had a blow out of the second of the two new tires we bought in February for the Tow Dolly. What a waste of time these tires were. I'll tell you the brand and the guys who sold them to me in another post so you'll never go there.
We fortunately were able to get immediately off the freeway with no damage to the rim, the dolly or the car. And as we pulled off, we pulled almost directly across the street into a Safeway Supermarket parking lot. While I was on the phone with AAA and Les Schwab tire company trying to arrange for mobile tire service, which neither group was able to help us set up, Meg went into the supermarket to ask the manager if we could stay in the parking lot overnight. He was real nice and told us of course. So, we looked around and found the best camping spot to be adjacent to a fifth wheel who had already set up camp in the parking lot as well.
Except for a little teenage party noise in the parking lot around 10 -10:30 all as fine and we slept pretty well after they left. I was up at 3 AM just because - I was sleeping in a parking lot but went back and got up again at 7 AM when I heard our camping neighbors get up, start up the diesel and pull out. I jumped up, went out, pulled the rim and mangled tire off the dolly and ran downtown to find someone to help us out.
I ended up at Willet's Shell station (instead of 20 miles away in Ellensberg at Les Schwab) and was the only one there, except for Dave, the guy running the place. It just so happened that he had two of the tires in the size I needed and also another rim that was the right one for our dolly too. I asked him to put one new tire on my existing rim and to mount the other new tire on the new rim.
I finally after all these miles bought a spare to carry with us for the duration of the time we use the dolly. Seems like it makes sense to have a spare. I am good at thinking ahead like that. Meg tells me that it is now our insurance policy. We will never have another flat on the dolly now that we have the spare. Sort of like buying a snow blower in the middle of a winter storm. It won't snow for the rest of the winter.
All set by 8AM we started out again and drove 400 miles today. All the way through Washington, through the pan handle of Idaho and landed in Missoula, Montana.
On the way through Moses Lake, WA we stopped to take the kids to the city operated water park. This was the only day they have had rain in 1000 years in August and since no one was at the park at 11 AM when they were to open (we didn't get there till 12) they closed it up and sent the workers home for the day. Son of a B..... if we didn't just tell the kids what we were doing just before we pulled into town, just to get them psyched for the event. BOOM - down we go. We saved the day by going bowling in town and the kids had a ball. A few of them actually!
The only other thing to do was to go hang out at Walmart for fun. And....... we did that yesterday.

Opps! I forgot Saturday's stuff!

First here is a little bit of Governmental Wisdom - " Hey lets get those mandatory low flow toilets and save some water. Yeah and I'll have some signs made cause you know they never flush well."

Here are some of the photos from Port Angeles and Sequim

Clallam, Bay - It's like where does the water end and the sky begin

Does anybody know this species of tree.... or Red Car?

The Bay Village of Port Angeles, WA - coming down one of or THE main north-south street

For Most Creative use of a Tree Trunk - The winner is.... (the landlord, according to the tenant) Enter Sequim The Open Air Saturday Market Creative Signage from a vendor - The quote - "Love is work made Visable" - Kahlil Gibran

The Lavender Farm - "Purple Haze"

The kids after I gave them fresh Blackberries I just picked - "Guess their not ripe yet!"

We're On Our Way Home (for just a little while)

Well this time we are heading East for another extended stay up and down the coast. The trip, as we have been on it, is close to being over. I stood outside the motorhome this morning today in Sam's RV Park as I was making the necessary adjustments to get on the road. I stopped for a few moments and offered up my gratitude for this trip that we have been fortunate enough to have been on for the last 9 months, aware of the freedom and space that we have realized, the great people we have met, including each other and the spectacular and sometimes overwhelming beauty that we have witnessed and I got all choked up and tears of joy and gratitude flowed abundantly. This was a very happy moment. It has been a great enlivening, clearing and enriching segment of my life, our lives together and especially for Jasper.

We have traveled 16,000 miles in the RV and so have the rear tires of the Prius and another 19,000 in the car on all four wheels. That's a total of 35,000 miles of America that we have visited and I hope this can go on for years to come.

For now we will make our way back to CT over the next 10 days. 3,300 miles in 10 days, you can do the math. We are going to be doing a lot of driving each night and taking the daylight hours to play along the way back in a new site each day.

Tonight we will make it to Moses Lake, WA - Tomorrow we will make to Missoula, MT. By next Saturday night we will be once again in the embrace of our Iowa friends for a days stay before we shove off again on the easterly path. All of this, of course, depends on the fact that we will get out of this traffic jam on 101 here in Sequim, WA before September.

Below are a few photos of a few days, including yesterdays journey around northwestern Washington state.

We stopped at the Quinault National Fish Hatchery and received a personal tour of the place

The Kids got to feed the 8 month old King Salmon - These salmon are raised in creek water that runs along side the hatchery - so... this is cool, in April they will be released back to the creek and they will head out to the ocean for about 3 years before they make their way back to the creek (and right into the hatchery with a little guidance) where the eggs and sperm will be collected by hand and the whole process will begin again.

A lot of planned forest clear cutting takes place up here and a lot of replanting as well.

There are signs all over the place that say when the areas were cleared and replanted. This replant is 20+ years old. Some of the trees they are still cutting today our over 400 years old. I'll show you those in a minute

But First, I wanted you to know that I visited my place in Aberdeen, WA. Your welcome to come on down anytime

The fish hatchery was great but the highlight of Friday, on the way up to Clallam Bay was the Olympic National Park Temperate Rain Forest

The trees in here are OLD and enormous, like lost world enormous. They average 200 feet tall

And walking in here is like no place I have ever been (especially when the sun is out)

Hers another set of examples of size of these Douglas Fir Trees. It makes me wonder how we could ever cut these down, they are so majestic. I can relate to all those folks who try to stop them. Once you see them you want them to remain where they are.

They say that strong wind damage takes out the most of them every year.

You can see below that they produce a lot of sap as I became stuck to this one as I backed up to it to show scale. No one recognized that I wasn't the SAP.