South Dakota

On Thursday, we drove from Chamberlain, SD, to our new home for a week, Hart Ranch, just outside of Rapid City, SD. It was all interstate, so we made great time.

Since we had the time, we stopped in Wall to check out the “world famous” Wall Drug. That place is really something. It’s at least one square city block in size and seems to be made up of a lot of what used to be other stores. You just walk from one into the next and so on. They’ve got it all: a restaurant, 5-cent coffee, every souvenir item you could possibly want, a playground, minimal grocery items, and on and on and on. Now we can say that we’ve been to Wall Drug!

For the last 30 miles or so before getting to Wall, the interstate parallels the northeast part of the Badlands. There were areas of it that we could see from the road and we also took off on a scenic stop to check it out. I didn’t take any pictures as the distance was too great and they wouldn’t have turned out. And at that time we were still thinking of driving back to do the scenic byway through there.

It was a great moment when we came over a hill and could see mountains in the distance. It was like coming home. We both commented on it. What a beautiful sight.

Our campground is terrific. We’re in a valley south of Rapid City. There is an Equine Center bordering the campground so we get to see and hear the horses from time to time, and that’s cool.

So Friday we were off to play tourist. We drove northwest up to Spearfish, which is the northern-most point on our whole trip. From there we headed south on the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway. This was a beautiful drive. It was actually a lot like being in the Colorado Rockies.

We stopped at Bridal Veil Falls.

We also stopped in Savoy, which is little more than a hotel and conference center. It was beautiful there.

We drove up the gravel road for about a mile to see another waterfall: Roughlock Falls.

Once out of the Canyon, we drove back to the northeast to Deadwood. We tried our hands in several of the casinos, but didn’t win anything to brag about. We didn’t lose it all, though.

Friday was our 30^th wedding anniversary, so we decided to find a restaurant and eat out. This is not as easy as it may seem. We didn’t want to be driving all over Rapid City, getting lost and who knows what. We went up to the office and went through their book of restaurants in the vicinity. We settled on The Gaslight in Rockerville. If you are ever up in these parts, THAT is the place to go. We had a fabulous meal.

On Saturday morning we headed south to Mt. Rushmore. I had been there nearly 40 years ago (argh!) and it has certainly changed. The Avenue of Flags has a flag and information about each of the 50 states.

And then there are the faces themselves. It was awesome.

And here’s proof that I didn’t lift these pictures off some other web site!

After getting our fill of the presidents, we headed towards Custer to see the Crazy Horse Memorial. I saw that 40 years ago, too. At that time, you could see where the arm would be, that was pretty leveled off. Now the face is complete and tons of rock have been removed as well.

I’m guessing we were at least a mile away from the monument. Here’s what the carving will look like – someday!

We learned that the four faces of Mt. Rushmore would roughly fit inside the head and hair of Crazy Horse. That gave me a new perspective of how enormous this memorial is and will be. I don’t think it will be completed in my lifetime.

We had lunch in Keystone and then headed back home.

Sunday was work-day again: cleaning, laundry, catching up on this and that. And then we had to watch the Bronco game. I think people around here are about as big of fans as people in Denver. We were thrilled to get the game on the local channel. And yet again the game came down to a field goal in the last seconds – this time it was overtime!

We returned to Deadwood on Monday. On the drive, we noticed that the trees were beginning to turn. It was a beautiful drive through Boulder Canyon. Once at the casinos, I actually had some good luck early in the day, but that passed. So we left our budgeted amount behind and will try again another day. This seems to be the story of our gambling lives.

As we were getting close to our campground, we had to slow way down to allow these guys to cross the road. We had seen wild turkeys in Kentucky but didn’t get any pictures of them. These guys hung around long enough for us to get several.

Did I mention the cold? Overnight temperatures here have been in the 40s and one night it even dipped into the 30s. Brrrr. Fortunately, the days warmed up pretty well and we had sunny skies to enjoy this beautiful part of the USA.

Our next stop will be the Denver area for about 10 days. So we’re trying to get organized and get things settled so we can be away from the coach for most of that time. It will be great to see family and dear friends while there.

Until next time: happy trails!

The Missouri River

It was an easy drive from the Lake Okoboji area to Chamberlain, SD. Almost all of it was interstate across southern Minnesota and South Dakota. It was nearly all farm land, and very pretty in it’s own right. When we were fairly close to Chamberlain, it was like we crossed a line. It seemed that I just blinked and the whole landscape was completely different: rolling hills and bluffs and then the river below. It was something.

We’re lucky enough to be parked in a great little campground in Chamberlain, backing up to the Missouri River. We have a beautiful canopy of trees and lots of shade. Here’s a picture we took Wednesday morning.

Unfortunately you can’t see the river behind us. But we got more pics of that. This is from the back of our camp site.
We have some cement steps behind us which go down to the river itself. We walked down there and got this shot.
Then we went off on a drive. I mapped out a little circle we could do to see more of the river and this general area. We first stopped at a park just south of the town. This is looking back towards Chamberlain.
We continued on to the next town, Fort Thompson. What I didn’t know (I swear!) was that there was a casino there. I wasn’t surprised, though. There’s a “casino” in the gas station across the road from our campground. We figure there are 3 or 4 machines inside. But I digress. This was an Indian-run casino and was actually very nice. It was small, but had a nice variety of machines. We enjoyed a nice lunch and we left the casino with the same amount of money we went in with. A victory! And we had fun, too.

We drove back home over a couple of dams right outside Fort Thompson. Then we headed south, back to I-90. This terrain was largely hay fields and pastures for cows and quite a few horses, too. There were hardly any trees at all.

When we were driving in on I-90, there was a rest area just before we got off with a sign that promised an “overlook”. I wondered what kind of view it could have, probably just the river. But after seeing the terrain change once here, I realized there could be a great view. So we went to that overlook on our way back home. This is what we saw.

We really didn’t expect anything marvelous when we planned the two-night stay here. We just wanted a place midway between Okoboji and Mt. Rushmore. We got WAY more than we planned on. What a country!

Fun Fact (there may be a test at the end): The capital of South Dakota is not pronounced “Pee-air”, it’s “Peer”, only one syllable. See how much we are learning on this trip!

Lake Okoboji, Iowa

Our next stop on this three-month adventure was Lake Okoboji, Iowa. Referred to as the Iowa Great Lakes, this string of lakes is located in the north-northwestern part of the state. In fact, it’s so far north that if you aren’t careful where you drive, you’ll end up in Minnesota.

We stayed at Cutty’s Okoboji Resort, a membership only RV park. It was a really nice campground except for the incredibly hard water. They even had a disclaimer on the front of the park map stating that you may have to change your water filter frequently due to the high mineral content. And they were not kidding – you could taste it even just showering.

The resort was great though, very pretty grounds and they had everything. It was pretty empty. I guess their high season ends at Labor Day. But it did pick up on Friday afternoon; there was almost a parade of incoming RVs then.

We explored the area to find some fishing spots we’d enjoyed a year and a half ago when we were there with my younger sister and her husband. We found the spillway where we’d had such good luck before and then stopped at the store to get our fishing licenses.

The weather took a turn after we arrived and got fairly chilly. We toughed it out on Saturday morning at the spillway but had no bites at all. After lunch we went back out in search of a place Julian remembered from the first time we were here. We didn’t find it, but decided to fish off the fishing docks on Spirit Lake. It was beautiful there, but the fish weren’t biting there either.

Sunday morning we went to a location our neighbor at the park told us about. It was on the south end of Upper Gar Lake. It was windy and still cold and we never got a bite. We left when the little “tween” girls came to fish. They just kept getting in the way, so we gave up. It wasn’t like we were fighting over the multitudes of fish, so what the heck.

Our campground had cable and we had three different CBS stations, each carrying a different NFL game. We were thrilled to find the Denver Broncos playing on one of those channels. We got to watch the entire game and if you saw it, you know that it came down to the final second – literally. What a finish! We sure enjoyed it.

OK, back out to the spillway on Monday morning. It wasn’t as cold, but the fish just weren’t there! So we went home and had lunch. Julian just wasn’t satisfied, so we headed back to Sawmill Park at Gar Lake in the afternoon. And we were really glad we did. With some patience we finally caught a few fish. Between us, we got one small walleye, two sheepshead and two small perch. It was fun, but there was nothing to bring home and eat. But here’s a picture of the first sheepshead I caught.

You’ll just have to trust me that we caught those other fish.

Today is moving day – we’ve come about 230 miles west into central South Dakota. The town is Chamberlain, which in fact is smaller than David City, Nebraska, where I grew up. We are parked right on the Missouri River. It’s very cool here. We’ll be exploring tomorrow and I’ll post more information and pictures after we get to Rapid City, SD.

In the meantime: Happy Trails! (I know ours have been!)

P.S. Karen, you should try The Outrigger restaurant when you get there – it was great!

Family Time in Lincoln, NE

We spent the 29^th, Julian’s birthday, on the road to St. Joseph, MO. It turned out to be a long (and beautiful) day of driving, so we had dinner in and went to bed early.

We added extra days to our stay there so that we could go to the local casino – sort of a birthday present to Julian. So Thursday morning we were off to Terrible’s St. Jo Frontier Casino. We got all sorts of perks when we signed up for their players club. Everyone gets a t-shirt or a baseball cap just for signing up. But Julian got a whole bunch of points as well as a coupon for a free meal at the buffet – just because it was his birthday month! Pretty cool! We had a good time and the buffet was good, but we went home empty handed (yet again).

It was time for a real Birthday Dinner. It seemed like we just hadn’t had time to really stop and celebrate his big day. So after looking through all the dining info we could find, we decided to go to The Old Hoof and Horn Steakhouse, the oldest restaurant in St. Joseph. What a good decision that turned out to be. The combo appetizer that we had was to-die-for good. Julian had fried whole catfish (one of his favorites) and a small cut of prime rib. He was in heaven! And that’s how it should be for a birthday dinner.

On Friday, we did the mundane stuff. We cleaned the coach, Julian bought the groceries, I did the laundry, and Heidi lay around on the couch. All this before noon, too! Then we went for a drive. They touted the Parkway that runs through the city. So we took the maps and went for a drive. It wasn’t what I expected, but we did see more of St. Joe. At the far end was a city park that was really cool. They had it all: a pond with a water fountain, an open air amphitheater, lots and lots of grassy areas, a playground and a building that we guessed was used for parties, weddings, etc. It was very cool to drive through there.

Saturday morning found us on the road again. It was only about 150 miles to Lincoln, NE. Arriving in Lincoln was quite a sight. As we neared the downtown area, we could see little that wasn’t red. Everyone was dressed in red. All the banners and flags were red. It was opening day for Nebraska University football. In truth, it was great fun to see all the fans heading towards the stadium. This town is crazy for its football team.

After getting set up and organized and cleaned up, we were off to my younger sister’s house for dinner and a few games of pool. What fun to see family!

My other sister lives in Norfolk, NE – you know, of Johnny Carson fame. We drove up to see her on Sunday. We took her out to lunch and had a great visit with her. It was a pretty quick trip, but we sure enjoyed spending time with her.

On Labor Day it was our turn to entertain. We invited my brother and his wife (who also live in Lincoln) and my younger sister and her husband to the campground for a cook-out. We had a great time. The weather cooperated; the temperature stayed under 90°. We had shade and a slight breeze from time to time, making it totally enjoyable to sit outside the coach all afternoon. And then we got this picture before everyone left.
That’s Doris, my brother Jim, my sister Karen, her hubby Bill, Julian & Heidi and me.

Julian and Bill went fishing in Bill’s boat on Tuesday afternoon. This proved to be a very successful outing. Julian caught a 7-pound channel catfish which became dinner for the four of us. It was pretty darned good – and you can’t get a fresher meal.
We had a great weekend with my family. It just went way too fast.

Kentucky and Missouri

It seems like forever since I’ve been able to post. So now it’s catch-up time. Boy! Do we miss easy internet access.

We toured another cave just outside Cave City, KY. Crystal Onyx Cave is a small cave, but was very beautiful inside. We spent a little less than an hour inside and really enjoyed it. Here are a couple of shots that we took while inside.

Our tour was very “intimate” with only five people and the guide. There was one section that was down a flight of stairs and the other 3 chose not to go down. So our guide took us down and then snapped our picture while we were down there, near one of the formations.


Proof that we did indeed get into the caves of western Kentucky!

Then we were back on the road again. We stopped outside of Paducah, KY, for lunch at KFC. It just seemed so appropriate! (tee hee) We drove about 250 miles to Cape Girardeau, MO. This shot is of the bridge that spans the Mississippi river between Illinois and Missouri. I thought it was pretty cool.

We arrived at Cross Creek RV Park on the north side of Lake of the Ozarks the following day. This is a really nice park, though very hilly. I think all of MO is hilly. It is beautiful, though.

We did a little sight-seeing and had several lunches out. We soon decided to spend only seven days there instead of the nine originally planned. We’d spend the extra days in St. Joe instead. Julian did some fishing and he caught several pan fish. In the end he didn’t keep them. But I DID see them and can attest to his skill on the lake here at the campground.

We gave Heidi a haircut one morning. We never look forward to doing that, but she looks great now that we can see her face again. She was way past due for her grooming.

We visited Ha Ha Tonka State Park. (I have no idea why it’s called that!) But it was a great way to spend the morning. The land was originally purchased by a rich guy from Kansas City in the early 1900s. He started building a 60-room mansion, but was killed in a car accident a year after construction started. His sons completed the house many years later, but had to sell it early on. It was run as a hotel for a period of time before a fire gutted the entire structure in the early 1940s. This is what’s left of the main house, now referred to as the castle.

One can easily see that it must have been a grand property in its day. And the views are fabulous as the house sits on the top of a bluff overlooking a part of the Lake of the Ozarks.

After seeing the castle, we drove to the natural bridge, which was formed by sink holes on either side of it. From there, we drove to the opposite side of that part of the lake. This is a shot looking back up at the castle ruins.

It was a beautiful park and a great way to spend the morning.

From Lake of the Ozarks, we drove 225 miles to St. Joseph, MO, on Wednesday. The scenery was awesome! The tree-covered hills of the lake area gave way to farm country and somewhat flatter terrain. We discovered that there are Amish in Missouri – we even saw a couple of horse-drawn carriages. This form of travel is so amazing. The USA is a gorgeous place to be!

Moving Time

We enjoyed a quiet day at home last Sunday. The weather was a little cooler, so we had lunch on the patio. We both sat outside reading our books, till we finished them. There was time for naps and playing cards. We had cocktails at the creek and watched the hoards of ducks on the creek. The babies have grown so much that they are hard to tell apart from the adults. A month is a long time in “duck years” I guess.

Monday found us at the casino for one last fling. No, it wasn’t profitable. Yes, it was enjoyable. We stopped at Maggie Valley Pizzeria on the way home for one of their wonderful special pizzas. We nibbled on snacks and had a late dinner of delicious pizza before watching the Bronco game. We only watched the first half and then it was bedtime. But we found out in the morning that there was very little scoring in the second half anyway. So I guess we didn’t miss anything. Hooray for the win!

Tuesday was kind of an organizational day. Then we went out to dinner. We went to Sweet Onion again, since we had enjoyed it so much the first time. Then we got real serious about organization on Wednesday. We got most of the outside stuff packed away to make the final cleanup easier in the morning. Most anything we wouldn’t need was stowed away.

Thursday morning we took off for the next stop in Kentucky. Not far from Knoxville, TN, we had a jack error. This happens occasionally and can usually be fixed on the fly. Not so this time. We pulled onto an off ramp and played with it until some lubricant finally got the thing to retract all the way. But by Somerset, KY, the darned thing went off on us again. It was mid-afternoon and hotter than you-know-what. We pulled into a K-Mart parking lot and started working on it, but it went down all the way and would not come back up. After a couple of phone calls we learned how to raise it manually. Whew!

We arrived at Diamond Caverns RV Resort late in the afternoon and had a hard time finding a spot we liked (it wasn’t assigned, we could pick). None of the sites seemed very level, but we finally got onto one and got leveled out pretty well. The worry of whether or not the jack would come up gave Julian a restless night. So we went through the exercise of raising them and it was perfectly fine. Did the whole thing again and it was perfectly fine. So maybe it will behave. In any case, we decided against changing plans to go for service.

We did some driving around to see the area. We went up to Mammoth Cave which was only a few miles from our campsite. We picked up all the info so that we could decide which tour to take. So Saturday, we went back to the park and took one of the tours. We walked about 2 miles in under two hours with over 400 stair steps included. It was work getting up some of those steps – we walk a lot, but don’t do steps or hills that much. The cave was very cool to see. But it was just a cave – not nearly as visually interesting as Carlsbad Caverns. There were no stalactites or stalagmites, but impressive in its immense size. Here’s a shot of us outside, after finishing the tour.

After that, we drove to Bowling Green, only about 30 miles away. We had lunch and did some scouting around there. By the time we got home, we were pretty tired. Julian took a nap and I went to the Pavilion to get onto the internet.

We will be leaving here on Tuesday, 8/21. After 2 days of driving, we’ll be at Lake of the Ozarks for 9 days. Hopefully we’ll have pictures to share while there. I’ll only have dial-up access, so the blog entries may be few and far between.

As always, happy tails till we meet again.

A Quiet Week

Here it is Sunday again, and I haven’t written anything. That’s partly because we haven’t done any true sight-seeing.

Our friends left on Monday, around noon-time. They had a short drive to Atlanta where they were going to get to see their new granddaughter for the first time. After they left, we went out and did some grocery shopping and then hung around and had dinner in.

On Tuesday, we made a big circle around Asheville. We had wanted to get some goodies from the Biltmore store, so that was our first stop. We had bought a key lime cheese ball mix last summer, but gave it away. So we had to get one for ourselves this year.

Our next stop was at a Super Wal-Mart. (The regular Wal-Mart here has been found lacking.) There was a Kohl’s store right next door that we wanted to pop into as well.

Then we were off to find Heidi some food. We didn’t get what we really wanted until we got to the third pet store. And what a challenge that was. We wound up on the phone with the owner to get directions until we pulled up in front of the place. (Microsoft Streets and Trips had been no help at all.) But she had everything we needed so it turned out to be worth the effort.

Besides, we found the restaurant we had liked so well from last year. So we just had to return to Thai Basil for lunch. It was every bit as good as we’d remembered and were so glad we had found it again.

Wednesday was a do-nothing day. We read. I scrapbooked a little. We played cards. Just a relaxing day.

On Thursday we decided to return to the casino. Turned out not to be such a good idea. Neither one of us had any luck to speak of. But we had fun. And the lunch buffet was terrific as always.

I got my hair cut on Friday (isn’t that exciting?). She really cut me short. I guess it will last longer that way. After I picked Julian up at the grocery store we stopped at a restaurant for lunch that he’d been eying since we got here. It turned out to be fairly mediocre, at best. But now we know.

I’m on a mailing list for upcoming events in North Carolina. We wanted to do something on the weekend and I found the 3^rd Annual Blackberry Festival in Mars Hill, north of Asheville. We’d enjoyed the Mater Festival and decided this could be just as fun. So we decided to go.

It took almost an hour to get to Ebbs Chapel Community Center, where the event was being held. What a gorgeous locale.

This “event” was little more than a church bazaar, but we sure enjoyed it. There were only about a dozen booths, if that. We gave them high marks for getting this festival onto the state's tourist bureau web site.



The craft items were nice and of good quality and we’re pretty certain they are all made by the folks of this little church community. Only one of the booths was selling anything blackberry related. We bought blackberry jams. The same booth also had different bean and split pea soup mixes, which we had to purchase. Definitely some yummy-looking stuff.

The best part was this guy:

Yes, this little, tiny Festival had an Elvis impersonator. The funniest part was that he was really quite good! Obviously, not that great to look at, but he really could sing. Really!

We headed back to Asheville to find some lunch. The scenery was as marvelous here as everywhere else we have been in North Carolina. This turned out pretty well for being taken through the window of a moving car. It really shows some of why I love the views up here. These mountains are beautiful.

This may be the last entry for another week. We are leaving here on Thursday for Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. We’ll have internet there, I think, so I will probably post after visiting the caves. Until then, happy trails to you all.

Great Smoky Mountain Railroad

It’s been a very busy week – that’s why the blogging got a little behind. Monday was the trip to Devil’s Courthouse. Tuesday was a shopping day, groceries and other necessities. We had dinner out with our friends at a marvelous restaurant called Sweet Onion. Wednesday found us just about as far west as you can go in North Carolina to walk the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest. Thursday was gambling day. Yes, we went back to the casino, but this time we actually brought home more money than we left with! No, there weren’t any big jackpots, but it’s still a huge win to have even a few dollars more in you pocket when you leave a casino.

This brings us to Friday and a wonderful train trip through the Nantahala River Gorge. We went with our friends again and with their daughter and her husband who are visiting for a few days. We drove less than an hour to Bryson City where we boarded the train at the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad depot.

Here’s a view towards the front of the train shortly after leaving the station.

This is crossing the Fontana Lake Trestle. You can see how low the lake is. They are having a drought here, too.

Even with the water so low, there are still quite a number of house boats out there. They are all under strict code, can only be accessed by boat and only in certain of the summer months.

After passing Fontana Lake, we entered into the Nantahala River Gorge. (It’s not what I expected with a name like “gorge”, but it was quite beautiful.)

Once past a certain point, we started seeing lots of whitewater rafters. This was not heavy whitewater and something a beginner could handle. It was fun to watch all of them pass by. It looked like they were having a terrific time.

The train stopped at one point and maneuvered the engine onto the opposite end of the train. Then we began retracing our “tracks” towards home. We stopped in a small village where we had an hour to get lunch and walk around a bit. We were right by the river, near a spot where all the rafts were taken out of the water. We saw about a dozen come in while we were eating our sandwiches.

This little water fall was right near where the train was parked.


Then back on board for the return to Bryson City. Since the train itself didn’t turn around, they asked that everyone switch sides for the return trip. We quickly discovered that we had enjoyed the better views on the way out. We could see some body of water (rivers and lakes) on the entire trip. It was mostly rocks and trees on the way back. Coupled with full tummies and the rocking of the train, we found ourselves getting a bit sleepy.

Once back at the depot, we went into the model train museum right next door. That was a definite trip down memory lane. They had a huge table, maybe 15 or 20 feet square, set up in one room. They had every kind of railcar and every auxiliary piece of gear you can think of: mountains with waterfalls, whole cities, little people and everything. The round house had at least a dozen engines inside individual “garages”; there were all types of switching gear, a coal plant and loaders, passenger trains, cargo cars, you name it – they had it working and rolling around this huge display. It was awesome.

Along the walls and in a couple of other rooms were hundreds of other engines and cars in display cases. Some were shiny and new, one set was even gold-plated. And there were also the old ones going back to the 1920s. It was really something to see. Julian and Larry were trying to find the same models they had enjoyed as kids.

It took me back to the great table that we had in the basement, on pulleys to take it from the ceiling down to rest on the pool table. I could even smell that familiar smell when the trains were in motion. We were glad we stopped in there! Ah, sweet memories!

On Saturday, we went up the road to Canton to the 4^th Annual Mater Festival. It’s a small event, but it was fun to walk around to see all the crafts. We bought a couple of tomatoes, but haven’t tasted them yet. Then we went for lunch to a Mexican restaurant. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t Colorado Mexican either. We’ll have our share of good Mexican while in Colorado and New Mexico later in this trip. You just can’t get it out here.

Today is Sunday. We’ve done the laundry and cleaned the house. Later we’ll play cards with our friends and then all go out to dinner. They’ll be leaving tomorrow, so it will be sort of a farewell dinner. We’ve really enjoyed them being here. And with them gone, we probably won’t be out doing quite as much sight-seeing. Check in here anyway, you never know what we might find to share with you.

“Only God Can Make a Tree”

It’s not like we haven’t seen any trees since we’ve been in North Carolina. They are everywhere and of every kind. But our hike through Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest was something else!

This was another excursion with our friends, the Demalines. Here we are at the base of the 1¼ mile trail which passes by the memorial.

This is the first sort of water fall/stream that we walked over. It was way cooler in person than this picture shows.

This is a sampling of what this forest was like.

… and how tall the trees were.

… and how big around they were.

The trail makes a loop through the forest and this memorial plaque is more or less at the midpoint of that hike.

Here are just some additional shots as we made our way back to the parking lot.



Like Joyce Kilmer said, “…only God can make a tree.” I think He outdid Himself here.