Day One Redmond, OR

Well we got off to a better start this trip. I actually made it out of town without having to return home for things I thought I had forgotten.

It has been a beautifull day!!! We had a race at Ritzville with a coyote. He won. I do not think I have ever seen any animal move as fast as that coyote. He was bookin' across the freeway. You have to have a lot guts to challenge 70 mph traffic, four lanes and a median strip. We missed him by just a foot or two and I saw the fear in his eye and I am sure he saw the fear in mine.

We had a beautiful drive along the Columbia and decided we would like to cross back into Washington to visit the Mary Hill Museum, but it was not to be. The bridge was closed. We then turned south into the heart of Oregon. It was interesting drive. We saw many Wind Mills for energy. There were acres of them. I got some pretty good pictures of row after row of them just churning away.

We then stopped at a look out point that was a mountain identification area. It had a semi-circle with an arrow and the name of each mountain. We could see Mt. Rainier, Mt Adams, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Hood, Three Sisters and many more. It was an amazing site.

We stopped at every Rest Area until we found just the right one for lunch. Actually it was the only one that had trees for shade. Huge park with only five tables. We did get lucky as there was just one left.

We had a little issue with the airbag light in the car so when we got to Redmond I called to see if we were in trouble. He said, "Well I wouldn't recommend having an accident." Great! Then he was nice enough to tell us to check the connections under the seat. So we jiggled a few things and it seems to be working. So now I don't have to worry if we decide to try it out.

We are now planning our adventure for tomorrow. A lot of scenic driving from here on out. The only problem is keeping Albert on paved roads. Not a four wheel drive!! But, I can say it is a dream of a car to travel in. Cruise control and comfort! What more could you ask for. Auto-pilot:)

I am in hopes of finding some good pictures to share on down the road. So until tomorrow, farewell.

Home At Last & Last Picture

As you see at the left, we would have been very remiss if we had not stopped in to visit the great Idaho Potato Museum and seen the super sized baked potato. It was very interesting to learn the history of the potato and we got free potatoes to boot.

I also highly recommend Martha's Cafe. They have a super sized pancake that I dare you to try. It is actually bigger than the plate. Or have just plane ol' eggs, add a slice of ham, and biscuit all of which is also super sized and life is good. If you are ever in the neighborhood you really should stop in for both.

Blackfoot was the end of our trip and at that point we decided it was time to head for the homestead. We arrived home safe and almost sound and are glad to be here. It has been a great journey! We logged almost 3000 miles and saw a lot of beautiful country. I think Albert is already starting to plan the next adventure. I don't know what was my favorite place, but I do know that along the way we met some really great people.

As for me, I am going to enjoy being at home. No matter what you do or see there is just no place like home.

I hope you have enjoyed the journey and look forward to new ones in the future. Who knows what is just around the corner waiting to be discovered. Goodbye for now.

Day 8

Well we made it to Independence Rock today. I ran out of room for downloading pictures:) I guess I have filled up my card. Anyway it is a huge granite rock in the middle of nowhere and I do mean nowhere. Travelers have left their mark on the rock since 1830. We made our mark, well our imaginary mark, and then trudged on to our next stop in Riverton, WY.

We caught our first glimpse of the Tetons about 50 miles from our destination. They still have a lot of snow and the surrounding hills have a smattering of snow on them. Tomorrow we head for the Tetons. We are suppose to go through Togwotee Pass and I am hoping for scenic over looks all along the way.

Riverton is a spot in the road. Don't know that I would recommend visiting here for any length of time, but it is a good spot to rest the weary bones.

We should arrive in Blackfoot before dark thirty tomorrow. I am really excited to see my son, but have a special destination in mind also. Until tomorrow, good evening to all and to all a good night.

Day 7

Meet Ole and Lena. They greeted us today at the Chapel of the Hills. They gave us a grand tour of the Chapel, the museum and the meditation walk. They are very cordial, but don't have a whole lot to say. We did most of the talking, but then I usually do.

We also visited the Black Hills Caverns. I forgot how claustrophobic I can be. Albert was cold and had to duck a lot. We decided above ground was much nicer.

We also visited the Petrified Forest located at Piedmont. It was a nice walk through the woods. We were escorted by a really nice, very large dog who was also visiting the park. He led the way and looked at us curiously when we strayed from the normal path, but he managed to adjust and led us on to the end of the journey. Fortunately he was not too distracted until the end where he promptly took off after a squirrel.

We hit the jackpot tonight! Our motel upgraded us to a room with a jacuzzi. I am excited about that and plan on enjoying it as soon as I finish this. Oh I guess I am finished. My jacuzzi calls. See you all tomorrow. We leave South Dakota behind and head for Wyoming territory.

Day 6

Well I thought I would not have a chance to write today, but we have a down time before dinner.

I must say it has been an overall interesting day. The elder of the group said about the trip to the cemetery that you start with a good road, then you go to half decent road, then a gravel road, then a dirt road which leads to a cow path. She told the absolute truth! We had 20 miles of paved road and then 30 miles of the gravel, dirt and path. It is beautiful country. The hills are a lot like riding a roller coaster with the same sensations as you go up and then suddenly down. It was fun. I have to say that the 50 mph speed limit was stretching it just a little bit toward the end.

I got some nice pictures of the cemetery and all the kinfolks for Albert and the girls. We had a very nice little memorial service for their Mom. Each of the kids took part, Nancy's husband officiated and I read Albert's poem to his Mom. It was a good day. We had a picnic lunch and then headed back to the big city of Wall.

We stopped for "homemade" ice cream at Wall Drug. Yum in the tum. We didn't have time to look around so we will head there either later tonight or in the morning first thing. It has whole lot of neat shops. Albert may have to drag me out, but I promised Christy I would find her something from Wall. Although she left a post requesting the burro, I think there might be a law against that.

Well as I said we are taking a time out before dinner bell. See you all tomorrow:)

Big Presidents head:)

I was having internet problems last night so here is the big presidents head. I also managed to get 3 more Reagan, Kennedy and Bush. They were on display for some reason in Rapid City. Whoo Hoo! All is right with the world.

Day 5

Howdy! Well we have had a great day here in South Dakota. We have seen a lot today. I think the most unexpected was the two on the left. These little burros live in the Custer Park evidently. They were so cute and came right up to the car. If I were one to pet hairy animals, they probably would have loved it, but then I do have this thing about hairy things. Never the less they followed the car for a way. We said our good by and mosied on down the road. We again found many tunnels and around each bend we could see Mt. Rushmore coming closer and closer. It was fun to revisit the site again.

We then left the beautiful Black Hills and head toward Rapid City. We stopped in the visit at the Reptile exhibition. Creepy crawlies of all kinds. I got a lot of pictures. We were most fascinated by the giant turtles. They have really long necks and move really slow. I got a couple of great pictures. It looks like one is trying to push the other one across the road. They were funny. They also love to have their necks scratched. We couldn't get close enough to give them a scratch, but it was fun to watch.

We then stopped by for my favorite thing of the day, a Limeade from Sonic. It was much needed as it was 89 here today. We have also had hurricane force winds. Ok, maybe that is not quite true, but still they were blowing really hard.

We then headed to the Badlands. Let me begin by saying that the drive is the worse part. About the time you are ready to give up you come up to the entrance and it just gets better from there. It was very unusual country, but most fascinating in its own way. We had decided prior to this that prairie dogs didn't have much use on this earth except to dig holes everywhere. Well we stand corrected! They lead very productive lives. Not only do those holes help the soil, they provide homes for the fox, owls, ground squirrels and ferrets. They build them and they come.

We then headed to Wall to meet up with the sisters. Tomorrow we head to the Rose family cemetery which is 47 miles out in the country. I will probably skip day 6, but will pick up on Monday with day 7 as our adventures begin again.

See you all later!

Day 4

Greetings! We have had a great day. We have been through tunnels, around mountains, through forests, over prairies and seen many wonderful things.



We have viewed dinosaurs of every shape at three different museums. The one at Hot Springs was an actual dig site that is indoors. There are numerous mammoth bones in a very large pit. It was very interesting.



We saw all kinds of wild life, deer, antelope, buffalo, turkey, prairie dogs, marmots and chipmunks. I don't think we missed anything that was alive and breathing. It was a beautiful day and all were out to enjoy it.



I did finally make it to the big presidents heads and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. They don't open until after Memorial Day. I came all this way just to specifically see the big presidents heads, all 43 of them. Oh well, I guess that means another trip in the distant future and then there will be many more presidents to add (hopefully the right ones). I do have picture of one at the gate.



We did get a glimpse of Mt. Rushmore, but that is on tomorrows agenda. It was a spectacular as I remembered. If you have never been to this part of the world, I highly recommend it!



Well it is late and we will get an early start. See you later.

Day 3

Greetings one and all! We woke up this morning to an absolutely sunshiny day. We started at the Dinosaur museum and enjoyed that along with a geological display.

We then headed out for the main point of this trip to the Dickinson, SD area, the Enchanted Highway, all 30 miles of it. Let me explain that it is stretching it by calling it Enchanted, however, it does have something special to offer. As you can see in the view of the picture at the left. This is just one of the huge metal sculptures along the highway. You can just pick out a fence post in the background for comparison. They are quite impressive. We viewed Geese flying, Deer jumping, Fish swimming, Theodore Roosevelt & horse and Ma & Pa with son in tow. It was well worth the drive.

We then proceeded on and discovered on the way why no one lives in North Dakota. It is miles and miles and miles of nothing. Oh, I guess I stand corrected, we did see a lot pheasant who were very uncooperative for photographing and antelope. Which reminds me we did see "Home on the Range" which encouraged me to spontaneously break into the song:) Albert was thrilled.

We finally made it to South Dakota which got a little more interesting. Oil wells were added to the view and more rocks. We also could see mountains in the distance which broke up the constant rolling hills. I do appreciate God's handy work, but after a while.........

Any way we made it to Spearfish where we park for the night. We arrived earlier than expected and will take a little extra time to rest from all the driving we have done. It will be on the road again to visit the Black Hills. Whoo Hoo!!! At last big Presidents heads. Tune in tomorrow for our unexpected finds.

Day 2

Day 2 started off great, well after a minor mix up on the part of Albert when he went to the wrong floor and wrong room to load luggage. The other guests were quite gracious when he explained he had the wrong room. Of course he didn't mention the wrong floor. But, after that little mishap we were off to visit the grand city of Great Falls. Guess what! They have the same type of city street officials we do. Over night they had blocked off a good majority of the streets we needed to get to where we were going, but being used to sudden change we were not foiled and figured out alleys and byways to find another route. Granted we probably frustrated a lot of the locals in making left turns from the right lane forgetting it was a one way, but then we are tourists what do you expect. By the way they have many one ways, always going in the wrong direction. They aren't real original in naming there streets either. You have a choice of numbered streets going east and west or numbered streets going north and south. Oh and then there is Central, which I believe intersects them all some way. Regardless we managed to find what we were looking for after circling a few times. I did find the right turn theory to be very useful.

We thoroughly enjoyed the Charles Russell museum! The art work and sculptures were great. I thought it very interesting to find out that 50% of his works are in a museum in Texas. Go Texas. I knew they had a lot as that is where I first fell in love with his work.

We then hit the road for a 7 hour drive to the next stop, Dickinson, SD. On the way we saw many beautiful and unusual things. One of the best was running into a stop light 150 miles out in the middle of nowhere with no cross road or other cars. We had not seen a single car for about two hours. But, low and behold it turned red and we stopped dutifully for about 5 minutes. Of course I should mention it was at a construction site, but all the same we sat there waiting on traffic that never came. It was just kind of funny. Two tractors pushing dirt and us sitting patiently at the red light.

God was really good to us and parted the clouds numerous times so the rain was falling on both sides of the road, but not on us. I really appreciated that and to boot He gave us a rainbow!

We then happened upon a small town that had a museum. We didn't have time to go inside, but as you can see from the picture we took, we got our first glimpse of dinosaurs:) Our second unusual picture of the trip. I thought it would make great yard art, but Albert wouldn't let me load up one to bring back. He mentioned something about theft charges or such. Oh well.

We are really looking forward to tomorrow when we visit the museum here at Dickinson. They actually have real dinosaurs, but I am sure they won't be as creative as those we saw today.

Well, it has been a long day and we are pooped! See you all tomorrow!

Day 1

Greetings to one and all. We managed to leave on time with joy and anticipation which lasted as long as it took us to join the morning traffic commute. We decided on taking the scenic route to the freeway since our options were limited. Little did we know that half of the city also likes the scenic route. After what seemed like an eternity (patience is not one of my virtues), we had the on ramp of the freeway in sight. Whoops, woman of the house realizes she left essential items (makeup bag) at home, makes quick lane changes to enter on ramp headed back to home port. After arriving at home port, woman of house enters and realizes she had packed the essential items after all. Woman of house then grabs two bottles of water as a peace offering or to throw on the fire if said man of the house chooses to react. Smiling sheepishly woman of the house enters car and man of the house is gracious and laughs with her. We then decide not to take the scenic route to the freeway again and proceed to use a little common sense.

After driving for a whole hour, we had worked up an appetite so we stopped for second breakfast at Denny's and had a great Grand Slam breakfast. We then hit the highway and what a beautiful day it was. The drive to Great Falls is really very scenic and a lot of wide open country. Beautiful snow covered mountains framed the rolling ranch land beautifully with cows grazing peacefully. (Ok a little corny, but it was really pretty).

We arrived and excitedly rushed to get checked in so we could go see the Charles Russell museum. But, par for the day, we realized when we arrived at the museum that we had 30 minutes to do a two hour tour. Whoops! We forgot the time change. So we opted to visit the gift shop, have dinner and do a walk about in Great Falls. I am adding one of the most interesting pictures of the day:) That is assuming I can figured out how to download it properly. If not, I will keep working on it as I don't want you to miss anything exciting:) (Note: Could the day get any better:0 Actually I really am still smiling. The attempt to download the picture failed. The file is too big so it will take some editing to get it into a format that can be downloaded. I will try again tomorrow night)

Well we anticipate a great start tomorrow and will be first in line at the museum so we can get the 2 hour tour maybe done in 1 1/2 hours instead and then on the road to more adventures. We are really enjoying the trip despite a set back or two, but then that is what vacation is about. See you tomorrow!

The Count Down

Well, here it is the day before we leave and I am as excited as Christmas. Albert is very precise in his trip preparation and has encouraged me to make a list so we don't forget anything. My theory on the list is we are going to forget something anyway because I can't remember to add it to the list, but to keep peace in the family I have made the list. I am checking it off as I pack it and trying to remember if there is something not on the list. A vicious circle.

Yesterday was Mother's Day so I treated myself to a GPS for my computer. Great little thing to have. Sometimes I wonder about my bright ideas. The problem is I should have had it a month or two ago to learn how to use the great little thing. Oh well it gives us something to do on the road when there is nothing to look at or do. I did manage to get our itinerary listed and figured out with my daughter's help how to get our motels on the right day. I figure during down time I will work at getting all the sight seeing in too. By the time I get home I should have this thing conquered and will be ready for the next road traveled.

Well I had best get back to the list and remembering what I didn't add to it. Ready or not we are traveling!