States and States Behind

I can tell you one thing. Harley Davidson has more stores scattered across the countryside than God has green apples. There are a lot of Harley stores.

These days, we are busy with relatives and traveling back and forth from our campsite to towns nearby (and far) to meet up with relatives. And reconnect with one friend I've loved since Junior High. It's been a special summer. And a hot one, although the people who live in Illinois will tell it's been a cool summer. I do not see cool when I look at the thermometer, so I can't say. I do know that when we get the car cooled off enough to find it survivable that the windows get fogged up on the outside from the humidity (97% today). The air's so thick with moisture you can hardly breathe and when it's mosquito hours, it's like breathing bug soup. Ugh! Give me regular Washington state moisture that falls from the sky any day.

We are parked under some giant oak trees. For those who have forgotten, or maybe never  met an oak tree, they grow acorns. Lots of acorns. Sizeable acorns. There are no squirrels to be seen within the confines of this rv park and so no one is harvesting the acorns. Except maybe the bunnies. I honestly don't know if wild cottontails eat acorns, but I would guess they do, but they don't climb trees. Maybe rats eat them too. I have not seen rats (sincere thanks, Lord), but I have seen bunnies.

Anyway, back to the oak trees. Come a certain time of year, like within the last 2 weeks, the acorns come ripe and if not harvested by diligent squirrels, fall off the tree. Our 150 foot oak trees are bombarding us with acorns all day and night. When a cluster of acorns hits the roof, it sounds like a gunshot and will wake us all out of a sound sleep or a tv stupor. Those nuts falling that far are NOISY when they hit a fiberglass roof. We can hear them whack the other motorhomes around us too. We get an acorn tympani 24/7 most days. However, yesterday morning and this morning we had big old thunderstorms and winds and that knocked many acorns off the trees. While it was noisy during the storms, it was pretty quiet last night and has been since this morning's storm passed. Perhaps we will get a day's respite from the bombardment.

Poor Norman has not gotten over his fear of thunder. I was hoping familiarity would convince him nothing bad will happen, but such is not the case. I feel so bad for him and we try not to leave him alone when we know it's going to storm. He needs to be close to his Dad when it thunders.

Luckily, he gets along with his dog "cousins" that live with our families. That's a big relief, because he's going to have to stay with said cousins while we travel back to Seattle in October. Yes, we'll be staying at Jason and Lauren's house from Oct 2-Oct 15, and visiting doctors and friends as well as our children. We miss you all so much. That's the bad part of traveling. We miss our kids, our friends, our Norton/Barrett family and our ward. All the wards we have been to have been lovely wards full of lovely, welcoming people, but they are not "our" ward. Probably, with people moving in and out, "our" ward isn't "our" ward anymore either. Nothing stays the same.

I can't believe how much has changed in the formerly tiny country towns that are on the Elgin outskirts. They aren't tiny any more. They are almost inskirts now. (is that a word? Inskirts?) 2 lane country roads are now transformed into 5 and 6 lane highways! Towns have grown well past their former boundaries and they aren't tiny any more. Heavy traffic is everywhere. It makes me feel a tad displaced. My childhood home is no longer the way it is in my memories. It never will be again. It's a strange feeling and perhaps what is meant by the phrase, "You can't go home again." Home as it was is no longer extant. It now takes us a full hour (or more, depending on time of day) to travel the 27 miles to my sister's house. Amazing. My step-grandparent's farm has disappeared, subsumed by two housing developments. Little South Elgin, which used to be about 3 blocks long and 4 blocks wide is now a city unto itself. Life marches on. It makes me wonder what has changed and how much in Shoreline, as it feels like we've been gone a Long Time. (even tho we haven't)

Ray and I had an absolutely marvelous time with our niece Robin in Dickinson, North Dakota. We got to spend an extra week there with her instead of moving on to Minnesota, because work and school drew away my sister and her family during the week we'd have been there. So, no Marcia this trip, but a double dose of Robin!

We did nearly everything there is to do in and around Dickinson, and missed only the things that require an overnight trip to see. I think Rob was glad when we finally left because, 1. she got some rest, and 2. she was out of things to entertain us with. Well, Robin, we were tired out too! LOL

One of our favorite things turned out to be the North Dakota Badlands. Robin drove us around out there one day, showing us some favorite spots and camp areas. So beautiful, you can't believe it. Almost all the trees (except for the deliberately planted ones) in North Dakota are below the ground. So there you are, driving on a dirt road one and a quarter cars wide across dry scrub and more dirt when you come around a curve or top a hill, and there spread before you is a beautiful little canyon just filled with green, green grass and trees! It's simply astonishing and can take your breath away. I am afraid the pictures we have do not do it justice.

Oh, yes. There are no fences in cow country and by cows they mean beef cattle. Big ones. And June-August is when the farmers put the bulls out in the range with the cows and this year's calves. Thus to have more calves in the spring next year. A bull is a big and solid animal. You are liable to be pelting down a 2-track at 45-50 miles an hour (do not ask me why they go so fast out there on narrow dirt roads, as I do not have the answer, except maybe because the country is vast and it takes a long time to find a paved road and anything resembling civilization), round a bend and find cows, calves, and worse, bulls in the road looking at you like something they'd rather stomp flat than spend time moving out of the way for. Cows and calves find the cars startling and will either bolt for parts elsewhere or stand still nervously eyeing you as you creep past, but bulls are another story. If there is a bull in the road, you wait him out and he will move (or not) in his own sweet time, which I am sure is much more related to God's time than ours.

You do not want to hit these range animals. They are valuable and they are big. They will hurt your car, perhaps permanently. Some of them have sharp horns besides. So the cows wander around and munch what grass or plants they like that day and do not care if it's your road. Sometimes, a road will have a cattle guard across it. For some reason, they freak out the cows and they won't cross those. Some of the NFS campgrounds are cattle guarded and some are not.

Much of the land out there is government owned, but a good bit of it is privately owned and there are oil wells here and there, part of the Bakken formation of shale oil. The rules are different for private and federal lands as to what you may do there. It is a person's responsibility to know which land they are on. Thus you buy a large, complexly folded, plasticized map to help you get around. Unfortunately, said map does not have road names or designations or markings which match anything that you see in real life. This complicates things. But we managed to get safely in and out on our own, twice.

We went one day to a picnic area and were the only ones there. It was one of those places that is unexpected and beautiful to see. Plenty of room for other people and many tables and fire pits, but no one joined us. So we let the Norm run loose and sniff where he liked while we relaxed in the welcome shade. North Dakota is another place where it's hot in the summer, and occasionally, very humid. This day was sunny but only a little humid, but we were grateful for the shade trees and grass. We 3 just enjoyed the beautiful world God made for us and then wandered back to town by another route to get ready for supper and games with Robin.

Another time we went to a campground, again, no one else there, and spent some time having lunch and relaxing. Norman did not like this day, as we were target shooting and he does not like gunshots. We should have left him at home this day, but we thought he'd enjoy the freedom of running around and being outside. He didn't. He spent the afternoon in the car with the a/c on, huddled in the far back of the van with the extra equipment. Poor dog. We will not be taking him shooting again.

We went to a concert in the park in Dickinson, but the second was rained out. We went to Medora twice, once with Robin and Norman on our sight-seeing day and then again for the Medora Musical. If you are ever in the area, you must go see the musical. It was good clean fun and music and dancing. This year is their 50 year anniversary so they did a sort of retrospective, honoring the music of the eras and the different hosts. We took Robin with us and we all enjoyed it. The musical is held outdoors, in an improved natural ampitheater. They even have escalators to take you up and down, as it is quite steep. Wonderful fun!

We also attended the Ukranian Festival in Dickinson and ate cheese buttons. These are a sort of Ukranian version of ravioli, but round and smaller. Very tasty and buttery. We went to a restaurant that serves some Ukranian foods, but we opted for fried chicken instead of fleischkuekle (pronounced fleshkooklah).

We visited the Grassy Butte Sod House, but it was closed for the day so we just peeked in the windows. I'm glad I have a motorhome instead. We drove the Enchanted Highway to see the sculptures, visited the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame, went to see Hercules and Planes-Fire Rescue, took a look at the Red Tail and Medora campgrounds, attended the Taylor Horse Fest, went to the dog park, went to Robin's co-worker's home out in the country for a cookout, where one of the summer workers played some tunes on her ukelele banjo, drove the Theodore Roosevelt National Park South Loop to see the wild life, ate at Kings Chinese Buffet, Dakota Diner, El Sombrero, Jack's and J.D. Barbeque. Yum. We also discovered The Best Laundromat Ever. No, not the name of it. It's called Prairie Maid and it was the best we've found yet. The only laundry better is the one at my Sister Lynn's house!

There are more cows than people in North Dakota and more hay bales than cows. Lots of hay. Lots of cows. More cows. More hay.

Yes, there are pictures somewhere, lots of them. I'll get them posted one day. I'm out of order here. There was more in South Dakota. And more to say about North Dakota. And then there's the trip to Forest City, IA and Illinois. And Indiana. Hmm. I shall think on it and try to organize.

Meantime, we are here in Illinois until we aren't. We have ordered a screen house from Cabela's to give us shelter outside from the mosquitos, but instead of shipping it to us here, they shipped it to our mailing address and said, oops, too bad. So, it arrives in South Dakota today and they will send it back here. Double shipping charges. Argh. We are looking forward to that screen house!

Yikes!

Many comments on nothing in this space. I've got to get going on this blog, don't I? Maybe tomorrow....

Too Much Fun

We had such a good tkme in South Dakota, and we have had a blast with our niece Robin. We're sorry we've had neither time, nor energy and sometimes not even a cell phone connection to write the blog.

But we have pictures to post and stories to tell. Tomorrow we're off for Forest City, Iowa to visit Winnie MoHo's birth place,  and then we'll be in Belvidere, Illinois for a week or so.

So, WATCH THIS SPACE!

From Motorcycles to Trout, We Saw It All

On Thursday the 3^rd of July, we make the pilgrimage to the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame. 

It was well worth the trip. We saw so many old and unusual motorcycles, including a number of Indians. And we saw some old familiar cycles too.

There were even a couple of sidecar rigs!

And even a wooden Harley!

And many others. Some fancy…

…and some plain.

We saw big bikes…

…and little bikes...

…and old bikes…

And we had a really good time.

After the museum, we went over to the Side Hack Saloon,

just because of the name and because I have a side hack of my own. The burgers were fantastic! The saloon has its own side car outfit.

But I still like mine better. The ambiance (what there is of it) in the Saloon is pure biker. The entire town of Sturgis lives for The Black Hills Rally. I’m pretty sure it’s about the only thing that goes on there. Sturgis is fairly small and the locals tell me the 20 minute trip takes over an hour during the Rally. I think I’m glad we missed it, although we think it might be fun to go one day just to see all the bikes. Hard core bikers, maybe not so much. Most of the town’s ambiance is biker. They are already touting rental spots for venders for this year’s Rally in August. It must be something to see. The officials report that less than 10% of the people who show up for the Rally bother to register. I guess their attendance reports are a guess.

After our tasty, juicy lunch we headed on our way to Spearfish, to the D.C. Booth National Historic Fish Hatchery.

The witch who lives in the Garmin got us lost again. Not really her fault, maybe, because the most direct road into the hatchery was closed because it’s camping season and the road runs right through the Spearfish City Campground. We found it anyway. The hatchery is in a huge beautiful city park, and makes up only a small part of the park. This trip was an indulgence for me, as I, for some unknowable reason, adore fish hatcheries and Ray does not care if he ever sees another one, because I have dragged him to every fish hatchery we’ve run across. I just love those little fish! 

This is a beautiful hatchery that in the past grew and distributed hundreds of thousands of trout of all varieties all across the west. D.C. Booth used to catch trout in Yellowstone and haul them by wagons back to the hatchery to produce the next generation of trout. The old buildings and homes are still here, and the hatchery now sends out about 50,000 little troutlings a year. The rest of the fish live in the hatchery ponds permanently. Not a bad life for a trout.

Some of the trout have been at the hatchery a long time and they’d make a great dinner!

The historic buildings are beautiful.

And everything is very well kept up, as you’d expect for a National place.

There’s even an underwater viewing area where you can watch the fish, but the view from the top isn’t bad either!

After this, we found our way home to a colorful sunset at the campground.

On the 4^th, we hung out at camp. The big flag was a-flying in the wind and was beautiful. That flag is huge!

The 5^th dawned clear and hot and humid. We made a quick trip to a grocery for our contribution to the afternoon’s barbecue pot luck. Only about half the campers turned out, but that is their loss, for it was a time of good companionship and relaxation. No one here is from Here, but we all call this Home now. We’ve grown fond of our little campground. There were 5 couples from Washington State, more than from California. We had a nice spot in the shade to set up chairs and the two picnic tables, and they opened one of the big garages to set up trestles for the food. The sodas were cold, and that’s a good thing, because it was 94 degrees and probably felt like 100, when the breeze died down about 5:30. We were surprised to see it was 6:30 when we got back to the moho, the time went by so fast. So we took Norm for his walk and huddled up in the a/c. We hosed down after we cooled off and slept well, in spite of the 2 am fireworks nuts.

Today we’re hanging out again. It’s fun to travel about but it’s also fun to be home in the moho and just relax. It’s only 84 now, and so we may go out and sit in the shade. The humidity is only 38% for a change. 

Tomorrow, we will visit the Sheriff and the license plate people. And it’s laundry day. Again. Tuesday fun resumes with a trip to the Crazy Horse Monument.

Alive! Alive!

No, we are NOT in New York. We're right here at "home" in South Dakota. Golly a person takes a few days off for illness and Her Reader gets all grumpy. Cool it, Bro.

As I felt better on Sunday, we both went to Church. It was a good service and good lessons. The day was spectacularly beautiful. We set up chairs outside. Ray cleaned the wheels and put on the covers so they'd stay clean and the tires won't get sun rot. After that he napped in the outside chair and I read. Norman laid at our feet or rolled in the grass. We all enjoyed Sunday! I remember what I fixed for lunch, but I don't remember supper. Maybe spaghetti?

Monday we made the trek to Mount Rushmore. The day was beautiful and sunny, but windy as heck. I sat on a bench for a moment to put on some sunblock and my sunglasses were blown off the bench. Luckily, they were still within Ray's reach through the fence. We walked the President's Trail at the bottom of the mountain. Lovely views of the carvings and the surrounding lodge pole pine forest. Those lodge poles were bending and swaying in the wind. Ray and I were among the oldest on the trail. It was mostly young people and young parents, kids. The ranger said it was easy except for the last .4 mile. And he was right. The last .4 mile was straight up. Luckily there were stairs, and landings to rest on. Holy cow, was it ever UP. We saw Borglum's studio at the bottom of the hill and then hiked back up to the plaza and amphitheater level. It was a good work out. The howling wind kept us cooler, at least. Not many other people in their sixties (or older) were brave enough to tackle it, but we were! We were glad we'd made the trip to Rushmore. I'd like to go back and see the lighting ceremony some evening.

Norman had stayed home, but it turned out that we got a spot in a nice cool parking garage and they do have 2 dog areas by the lots. So he could have gone with.

The roads up to the Mountain are curvy and we wished we had our motorcycles. We did meet a group of motorcyclists from Washington. The wet side even! But most of them trailered their bikes. Weenies! It would have been a challenging ride in all that wind, though.

Right at the base of the mountain is a town called Keystone. It is the world's biggest tourist trap. I used to think that Lake Geneva was, but Keystone has that beat all hollow. Of course there are huge billboards along the way touting each of the many attractions. I just had to think back to when Kim and I were small and begged our 'rents to stop at each and every attraction. If there was a reptile town, we we wanted to stop. If there was a cave, we wanted to stop. If there were trail rides, we wanted to stop. Didn't matter much what it was, if it had a billboard, we wanted to stop. We begged and clamored and carried on. I can remember that we were quite unrelenting and merciless, but by dint of sheer strength and moth of pocketbook we never did get to stop at any of those places. My poor Dad! I'm sorry, Dad.

Here's a picture of the neatest thing at the chainsaw carver's place:

Tuesday, my legs were screaming at me for abusing them on the many stairs I made them walk up on Monday. Ow. My legs have had their revenge. They still hurt, but not as much. Our walk last night was shortened, Ray and I were tired, and I think ol' Norm was too.

We spent the day road tripping. We took a scenic loop trip, which included Belle Fourche (pronounced Bell Foosh for some reason) and the Geographic Center of the Country and continued on to Devils Tower and then home.

Belle Fouche is an old town, and still has some of the older elements. It's the home of South Dakota's first and longest running Rodeo. I am glad we were not there Rodeo week, it would have taken all week to get through town! There's one stoplight in Belle Fouche, and it's right down town. The park where the geo marker is is part of a complex of parks and walkways they call River Walk. You can walk a loop around the city if you have enough time and strength. We saw several portions of the Walk and it's really quite nice. Because of all the rain it's still beautiful and green and the flowers are blooming like mad, just like in Rapid City.

At the park, they have the first log cabin built in the county. It was two stories and quite small by today's standards, but a mansion for the prairie frontier. The man had to take his team of horses up into the Black Hills, chop the trees and then haul them back to his homestead with the team. Each log was hand shaped into a square, and the corners are dovetailed. The last surviving family  member gifted the house to the city for preservation.

Right next to the cabin is the Tri-State Museum. It's small but very informative, with a wide range of artifacts and a bookstore focusing on the history and geology of the area. I am astonished at how small women were in the 1800s and early 1900s. I am also pained thinking about getting laced into one of their corsets so they could fit into those teensy dresses.

After being educated we took off for Devils Tower in Wyoming. We passed through a very small town, Aladdin, population 15, that has a small (tiny) restaurant called Cindy's. They reputedly have THE BEST homemade pies in the whole state. We didn't stop.

Devils Tower is out in the middle of not much but scenery. The park itself is pretty small, but it was one of the first places set aside as a natural, protected area, even before South Dakota was a state. The real name of Devils Tower is Bear Lodge. The Native Americans have long associated it with bears. The Lakota origin story says that two children were being chased by a large bear and found a flat rock in the forest, where they paused to catch their breath. The rock said "Hang on!" and then rose into the sky, carrying the children beyond the bear's reach. He was angry at missing his dinner, and clawed at the rock, trying to climb up and eat the children. But he could not, as hard as he tried. So the children were saved. The legend does not say how they got down, but I'd like to know that.

Bear Lodge is still sacred to the Indian tribes in the region, and every June the tower is closed to climbing, because that's when Native Americans hold ceremonies and religious events at the tower. They still call it Bear Lodge. The name of the tower on the first published map in 1851 calls is Bear Lodge. But in later years, I think 1880s, another map maker visited and for what ever unknown reason changed the name to Devil's Tower. Because of a printing error, the apostrophe was left out and so it became Devils Tower and remains so to this day although Native Americans have long petitioned to have it changed back.

Whatever you call it, it's an amazing sight. Even the geologists don't know exactly how it was formed, which makes it all the more amazing and interesting to me. There is a hike around the bottom of the tower, but it is 2K and my legs were angry enough, so we didn't go. Norman went with us this day, and he could not go on the trail anyway, he could only walk around the parking lot. So that's what we did and still managed some pretty good photos.

On the way out of the park we stopped at the Prairie Dog village and took more pictures.

The entire day was filled with marvelous scenery. I have not even got words to express how beautiful it was. Our eyes were filled and our souls replenished, even as our bodies got tired. We stopped to get a pic of the SD sign, as I missed it on the way in the first time.

In Spearfish was the first opportunity to forage for supper, so we stopped there and had some supper at a Chinese restaurant which was very good. We got home just before sunset, so we took Norman out for his evening walk and then we collapsed into the TV zone.

Today we visited yet another laundromat in an attempt to find "the" one. I think there isn't a "one" when it comes to laundromats. The washers were only 2 bucks, but the dryers cost 25 cents for 5 minutes. It takes a lot of minutes to dry the clothes. We eventually lost patience and came home with several semi-dry shirts, which are now decorating the cabinet door knobs, finishing the drying process. Not very elegant, but cheaper than feeding yet more quarters into the dryers. By the way, SEND QUARTERS!!!

We also stopped at a grocery store. It was nice enough, but no store in this area seems to have heard of sugar-free fruits or pickles. Or sugar free ginger ale. Weird. We did find thin buns though, and some nice Portobellos.

On the way home, we stopped at the Over The Border and had a really late lunch or a really early dinner. We were fairly happy with our entrees, but their refrieds and rice need some work. The salsa, however, was spectacular good.

I don't know yet what we will do tomorrow, perhaps the National Fish Hatchery and the Motorcycle Museum. On the Fourth, I think we'll stay home. The park is having a Pot Luck at 3 pm on the 5th. Summer has arrived in full force, and it will be 93 degrees on the 4th. With the mandatory Thunderstorms.

My thighs still ache. Note to self: climb up and down stairs more often.

By the way, the Black Hills aren't black. They are a rainbow of colors, but black isn't one of them. At a distance, they do look sort of black, because of the dark green of the lodge pole pines. But up close, no black at all. Beautiful, though. We really like South Dakota. If only the weather was more like western Washington!

Oh, yeah, we finally identified the little brown birds that run so quickly and don't fly unless they have to, thanks to Sibley's Guide to Birds. They are Semipalmated Plovers! You should see their little legs go...they blur, just like in the cartoons.

Update

Susan is down with a cold/allergies and not feeling well. I got the server setup while she suffered in bed. We can now watch all the DVD’s we copied to it. I think it will work well. I have an app that will allow me to control the computer from my phone or tablet. There hasn’t been much on the satellite lately. The sun goes down so late we don’t sit down to watch until after most of the prime time shows are over.

We got the new license plates for the MoHo and my bike the other day. Got the plates put on the MoHo. But of course the bike will have to wait until we get it to Tucson next fall.

We are getting used to living in a small space. Norm seems to like the multiple walks every day and some time off leash. He ran through the mud the other night, had to wash his paws. It’s real sticky mud here. He doesn’t wander far from us unless he is chasing a bird. There are some small brown and white ones that run along the ground quite fast. He hasn’t chased any of the rabbits we’ve seen, but only because he hasn’t seen them. I am assuming there is more than the one we saw the other night. It was real close to us in a little clear spot in the grass. It sat there for a bit then took off through the grass. I wondered if it had been someone pet that got lose or was let lose.

Here are some pictures of the little brown bird and Norman

I have an appointment next week to install the steering stabilizer, have the sway bars adjusted and an alignment done. We have a lot of driving to do this summer and next so I want to make it is as easy and safe as possible to drive.

Not much exciting happening here so not much of an update. Tomorrow marks the third week of retirement. I will probably quit counting pretty soon. It has been 25 years since I retired from the Navy. Hard to believe. The time sure has gone somewhere.

More to follow sometime.

Could Have Been Worse

At the request of a storm chaser hiding amongst the readers, here's a blog about yesterday's storm. It was wild! Until it got to Rapid City, it was just a little one, but then, in the words of the Weather Guy on KOTA, it blew up. Big time, I am here to tell you.

It kept creeping closer...

And closer....

And closer....

And closer still....

It's almost on top of us...

Here it comes!

And this is what it looked like at the height of the rain. It went from a few fat drops to a downpour in no time flat.

Here's a good hail picture. I took it from the living room window, aimed down at the grass next to our rig. You can see a bit of Andy's rig parked next door, in the upper right corner, but not very well, because of the rain and the hail.

Ray posted the after picture on Facebook, but I've got something else for you, if I can make an audio upload work. Nope, I can't. I get an error processing the file. Phooey. It was quite impressive. Maybe I can get it on FB.

Anyway, it was a big storm. We didn't get hail much bigger than a small mothball, but other parts of the area saw 3" hail. Honestly! I can't even imagine hail that big and hope I never have occasion to see it. The weather man had a picture of a cloud wall that formed and had it been a bit more humid, we'd have had a tornado. Good news, storm chasers! Today is a lot more humid. The weather man has no doubt that today will be filled with severe weather alerts. O, joy.

No sign of a storm yet, but I know it doesn't take them long to pop up around here and I no longer trust the clear skies. If there is another storm, I will be sure to issue alarmed messages on Facebook, especially if mention of egg-sized hail or tornado is made.

Oh, and I picked up a bit of virus somewhere and must thank whomever left his/her virii hanging about. Thanks, hacking children and adults. I totally enjoy having a sore throat and huge tonsils. Not!!!