You don't know where you're going until you know where you're at....

As planned, we got up early this morning, changed the bed, did laundry and cleaned the motor home. I cooked a few meals that we can simply heat up while we are on the move.

After lunch we headed for a grocery store in Whitefish. We were driving down the road and I looked up and asked Salt..."is that snow? no that can't be snow, it's not steam; oh my gosh..."

This is what it looks like when you hear people say "when the mountains meet the sky". The clouds actually appear to be resting on the side of the mountain.

I know the trip through Idaho and into Seattle, Washington is going to be exceptionally beautiful but I really do hate leaving Montana. Salt and I are seriously thinking about picking up a couple of acres in the mountains for future options.

On the way in to Whitefish we ran across a huckleberry and cherry stand. We picked up some Huckleberry jam (Montana is noted for it's Huckleberries) and some fresh cherries...the cherries are the sweetest I have ever had. We are definitely stopping on the way out of town for some more. When we arrived in Whitefish (really cool western town) we stumbled upon a small Historical Museum; it was housed in the same building as the train station. It was very small but interesting as it traced the lives of the loggers and well as the railroad. We also found quite an interesting bass....took a picture for all my fishing buddies (Shane and Daryl). Is this the first fur covered fish you have ever seen?

Of course we had to stop at the Montana Coffee Traders.....I can't get enough of that coffee...sorry Starbucks!

We decided to take some of the back roads. One in particular we loved; it ran along the banks of Whitefish Lake and right through a forest. Salt and I were both hanging our heads out the window "sniffing". It smelled just like Christmas potpourri with all the pine trees.

While we were cruising, we received a phone call from one of our favorite "adopted" daughters; Janna Jedrzejewski. Many of you will remember Janna, as she spent 2 summers with us on the island. She is married, has 3 BEAUTIFUL children and is living in Laramie, Wyoming. We had planned to visit her on the way back through but didn't want to tell her yet as we really don't have a specific date when we will be there. I couldn't resist telling her today, and now I am getting really excited to see her, Jerry and the 3 boys! I will have lots of pictures when I leave there!

As we will be spending the next couple of days putting in some road miles, I am going to try and post some pictures from last summer (the lost summer...it went so fast...we were very busy!). Lots happened I just didn't have time or energy to keep up the blog......stay tuned!

We are watching the movie Fracture. In one of the truck stops, we found these disposable DVDs. Once they are opened they can be watched for 48 hours and they expire. How do they do that???? I really need to find out....not knowing things like this bugs me. Anyway, they are all recent releases and are under $5.00. They are perfect for our lifestyle

P.S. The fish is a joke!

It should be illegal it gets me so high.....

Before we left the KOA Saturday morning, we received a call from our good friend Jim Adamson. Jim had owned a home in Montana (and says his heart is still here) so was able to give us all kinds of information about what roads to travel to see the "real west" and some of the more beautiful parts of this picturesque state.

I set the GPS for Whitefish, a small town just outside Glacier National Park www.nps.gov/glac/home.htm . By the way...the person who invented the GPS should win the Nobel Peace Prize for saving marriages. I LOVE that thing! We made it as far as Great Falls, and pulled into a Sam's for the night.

Sunday morning we headed out again and about half way through the drive encountered this!!

We didn't know whether to push on or change plans and head a little more south. After stopping for gas on the Blackfeet reservation, we checked with some of the locals and they told us to go on because it would melt and the forecast was for a nice day tomorrow. Within 15 minutes we were out of the snow and into a very fall like drive for the rest of the way.

We found a very nice campground in West Glacier, right next to the park. We have decided to stay put for a couple of days and do some catching up on some of our "domestic" chores and just mellow with a movie or book between our sightseing tours.

We were a little disappointed to find out a large portion of the park is closed due to road reconstruction. There was a big washout in the spring so they were forced to close several of the roads. We toured a part of it this evening after dinner and found it as beautiful as we had imagined.

We had planned on going only as far as Oregon this trip but now that we are so close to Washington we have decided to add that to our itinerary. I think we are making Betty and Kriston a little nervous, making them wonder if we will get back to Myrtle Beach for their visit in November. Don't worry girls (and of course Emma) we will be on the beach waiting for you!

Felt the rush of the Rio Grandee, then saw Yellowstone first hand....

We left Gardner early Friday morning to spend our second day at Yellowstone. We drove into Mammoth Falls and hiked up to the hot springs falls. It was so strange to see all this boiling (literally) water cascading down the rocks and sitting in pools along the roadway.


Below is the picture of "Old Faithful" the geyser that erupts every 90 minutes. We arrived at the site at 12:30 pm and were told she would be erupting again at 12:42. We had front row seats and I had my camera ready. After taking 4 pictures, I looked at my cell phone and it was 12:43 pm....pretty accurate!

I think my favorite part of the entire drive thorough not only the park but a large part of Montana is the crystal clear brooks that run along the winding roads. The quivering Aspens throw a reflection into the waters that look like sparkling diamonds flowing through them. I told Salt it feels like we are spending personal time with God!



There were parts of the park that were not so pretty. There have been acres and acres destroyed by forest fires. Some are standing as just a charred mess while some like the ones below have started to regrow. You can see all the old charred trees standing in the picture below, as well as the new growth. This is supposedly from the major fires of 1989 so has taken 18 years to get it to this stage.



Oh I almost forgot to put this little bit of trivia in for Mike. There is a ski slope up where we traveled that is open only between May and July....as that is the only time they can get to it!

We left the park, (via this cool tunnel) spent a quiet evening at the KOA and mapped our way to Glacier National Park where we will head tomorrow.

Meet me underneath the blue Montana sky.....

"I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect....even some affection, but Montana, it's love...!"

John Steinbeck

AMEN!!

We love everything about Montana; the scenery breath taking, the people SO friendly and caring.

We parked the motor home at the bottom of the mountains at a KOA, 63 miles from the entrance to Yellowstone National Park and took the jeep into the mountains. We had purchased a Season National Park Pass last year when we went to Big Bend, and since we traveled later in the year it is still good. It is working out well since we are visiting so many more National Parks this year.

I packed an overnight bag and we decided if we were too involved in the park instead of traveling back to the motor home we would just stay in the park and do another day.

We took advice from the owner of the RV resort and headed up Bear Tooth Pass. The road winds 32 miles up the mountain and is a white knuckle ride all the way up. Once we reached the top (where Salt saw the only snow he will see this winter.....I hope) we stopped at a little store called The Top of the World . We grabbed some buffalo jerky and beef sticks for Matthew and a cup of coffee for ourselves and headed back down the opposite side of the pass.

What a trip....the road was full of hairpin turns and around every corner was a view more beautiful than the previous one. It was full of mountain lakes all of them as blue as the Caribbean! The fall colors are just starting to bite at the trees and bushes and we have been blessed with sunshine and low 70 degree weather....perfect for hiking.

This is Tower Falls, one of the many beautiful waterfalls gracing the park.

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Since the elk are in rut right now, we were able to see many of them out feeding right before dusk. there were also herds and herds of Buffalo!

Since the night was creeping in and we were a little leery of the unfamiliar mountain roads we decided to stop for the night. We slipped just outside of the park into the little town of Gardner, where we stayed in this little very rustic cabin.

I should have been a cowboy....

Last night when we returned from the park we stayed in the little town of Medora, SD http://www.medora.com/ . It was a very small town; still very western (we had Buffalo Burgers in the Saloon) and full of history.

Our plan was to get moving early, stop at the Cowboy Hall of Fame http://www.northdakotacowboy.com/ and have a full day to move on toward Yellowstone National Park.

The plan fell apart when I forgot to unlock the slide on the motor home before I popped it out last night...whoops!! Fortunately Salt and the manager of the RV park were able to tear it down and get it back on track.

We did get to the museum and were still able to drive as far as Billings, Montana. We stopped in a Wal Mart where we will spend the night and move on to Yellowstone by tomorrow afternoon.

Oh give me a home where the Buffalo roam.....

You all know what's coming don't you???


Of course...Buffalo!

We ALMOST didn't follow our original plan which was to swing up into North Dakota and visit the Theodore Roosevelt National Park www.theodore.roosevelt.national-park.com/ . We figured we were going to visit so many national parks that we would skip this one because it was basically acres and acres of the "Badlands". Well....whoever named this area the Badlands ought to have their butt kicked. There is NOTHING bad about this area!!

The 36 mile drive through the park was exciting beyond belief. We went through at the perfect time to see not only the beautiful rock formations but many of the wild animals out feeding.

I loved the colors on some of these cliffs.

These formations looked like piles of skeletons!

There were scads of these wild horses wandering the range. I believe the last time the government actually rounded up any of them up was somewhere around 1952.

And, last but not least....the ever abundant Prairie Dog.

Oh, I almost forgot we had one of those "it's a small world" encounters again today. We were stopped at one of the scenic overlooks in the park when we met a couple who saw our NY license and asked where were from. They were from Albany, NY. They are basically doing the same thing we are, except they are doing a lot of hunting and fishing. They said they now live in FL winters and as it turns out they are in the same town as we are. They will be looking us up this winter!

Blogger is having a problem posting pictures again tonight. I hope they get it straightened around so I can insert my pictures and get to my new book. Of course it's the new OJ Simpson book "IF I did it". .. I was NOT going to read the book if Simpson got any of the profits from it. However since the Goldman's now own the book I can't wait to read it. I am sure the Scumbag (Simpson) was guilty but truthfully if I had sat on the jury I would have had to let him go on reasonable doubt. The prosecution screwed up SO bad and the defense was SO shrewd! What a travesty of justice.

My glass won't ever be empty in my optomistic mind...

Yesterday when we were at Mt. Rushmore I ran into a very friendly woman from California. We got talking and she asked me if we had been to Crazy Horse Memorial yet. When I told her we had not she proceeded to tell me what a wonderful attraction it was and insisted we not miss it. When I mentioned it to Salt he recalled one of his friends also telling him not to miss it.

We decided to stay over another night and check it out!!

WOW!! I'm almost afraid everything else will be anti-climatic after our tour of the ENTIRE attraction. www.crazyhorse.org/ . If you check out only one web site, let it be this one! Having a grandfather who was half Indian and a grandfather who was all Polish, my interest was sparked immediately. The memorial is a moving tribute to Indian ancestors and the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski an incredibly talented Polish sculptor who has left an amazing legacy. I can't even imagine someone taking on a project of this magnitude. His wife and 7 of his 10 children are continuing the project.

Besides the magnificent mountain sculptor still in progress there is an incredible museum full of amazing Indian artifacts, artwork and history.

This sculptor is a model of what the completed project will look like. This sculptor is 1/34 the size of the one on the mountain.

This is the head which I photographed from a great distance. I believe the head alone is 86' high.

This is another magnificent wooden sculptor done by the same artist.

After we were through with the exhibits we strolled into the Laughing Water Restaurant and ended up having a late lunch of Tatanka stew (made with Buffalo meat) and Native American Taco served on Indian Fry Bread.

When we finally finished up at the museum, we came home, caught up on laundry and grocery shopping. We have mapped out our route for tomorrow. We will be heading for Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota (Badlands).

Want to go where I want to go, do what I want to do.........

Since we arrived so late Saturday night, we finished touring the little town of Wall before we started out for Grand Rapids and Mount Rushmore on Sunday

Salt is going nuts over the scenery here in the Black Hills. It is a magnificent drive. We have reservations at a KOA in Rapid City, since we plan to unhitch the jeep and do some serious sightseeing in the hills

Here we are at Mount Rushmore http://www.mtrushmore.net/ It's funny how all your life you see pictures of famous landmarks and find them interesting, yet when you actually stand in front of one of them it's a whole new perspective and respect.

Here are a couple of goats that roam the mountain but are absolutely fearless.

I could fill these pages with facts we are learning on all of our stops, but by putting the web sites in, you can pick what interests you or check them at your leisure.

After leaving Mount Rushmore we saw a sign reading...."Deadwood"..."Find the inner outlaw in yourself" www.deadwood.com Of course that is just the kind of come on that would make me follow the signs...HUGE mistake as it is an old western town turned into nothing but CASINOS. Since we are saving our allotted gambling money for Las Vegas, it didn't turn out to be a very exciting evening. The drive through the Black Hills National Forest and Custer State Park was well worth the trip!

We crossed over into Wyoming for a few miles before getting back on the road to Deadwood. This rock formation appeared from out of nowhere. It was very cool.

Right now he's probably thinking that he's gonna get lucky....

Sorry....I just couldn't resist picking on Salt!! More fun from Wall Drug!

I guess I'll just crash here tonight....

Saturday morning we headed for South Dakota with Mount Rushmore as our destination. We stopped for propane (generator) and ended up having an extend a stay tank installed This will allow us much more flexibility for wilderness camping. It is so mind boggling when you can pull off in some remote area, pop your living and dining rooms out and be able to access the Internet, watch direct TV, or talk to your family and friends....not to mention cook a gourmet dinner or print pictures!

Michael called this afternoon while we were on the road and said the California wild fires are right above them in Bear Lake (they are in Lake Arrowhead). There is not a great concern right now but it's too close for comfort!

After a 400 mile drive, we pulled off at the famous Wall Drug http://www.walldrug.com/ .

They have a huge parking lot for RVs so we just pulled in and crashed there for the night. What a cool place. It has been in business since 1931 and carries the coolest stuff!

The singing cowboy display inside the drug store

We're gettin down in a hick town....

Friday was a serious travel day. There are so many places we would like to stop and so many things to see that we have to force ourselves to keep moving. We are trying to be selective in picking the attractions we include.

We crossed into MN and is all I can say is "cornfields from here to infinity and beyond"! We pulled into the little town of Fairmont. We decided since we had been cooking dinner at the motor home all week we would do dinner and a movie. Small towns in MN are NOT the place to look for Chinese food. We did however see a great movie!

It was the opening day for "3:10 to Yuma" (Russell Crowe). I had read such good reviews so I am anticipating we might not get in if we didn't get to the theatre early. Well, we walked in and there were 2 other couples. I'm thinking we must be in the wrong theatre???? I turned around and asked the couple behind us where everyone was? They looked at me as if I were from another planet (not that they are the first that have wondered that). "I are you kidding he asked?". "It's Friday night everyone is at the high school football game"! You have to love small town America! It sure was football weather; it went down to 37 degrees.

I'm proud of that house up on the hill....

Thursday afternoon we headed for Spring Green, WI and an attraction called "The House on the Rock". http://www.thehouseontherock.com/ What a surprise it was to find something like this in the middle of a bunch of farms and cornfields in Wisconsin. You really need to check out this web site since it would take me forever to explain exactly what it is and how it got there.

Aside from the fact that it is very eccentric and has an infinity room which overlooks a magnificent view; the architect, Alex Jordan was a collector of STUFF! I can't think of any other way to describe the rooms and rooms of collectibles.

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The world's largest carousel is housed there as well as hundreds of fully furnished doll houses, thousands of dolls (including 2 three tiered carousels carrying dolls), suits of armour, huge pipe organs, the world's largest collection of circus memorabilia (over a million pieces), collectors guns, and on and on and on. Check out the picture of Salt next to one of the ship props.

We were very glad we didn't have Emma with us as we are sure we would still be there!

It is nearly impossible to take everything in in one day. We were so exhausted when we left, we drove only another 6 miles to Bob's RV RESORT (you noticed it says RESORT). It was a very nice place overlooking the Wisconsin River.

While we were settled in a park, we took the opportunity to catch up on the laundry and clean the motor home.

I know where she's going, she's going downtown; I'm going down too to take a look around...

Thursday morning we headed out early for New Glarus, WI. We took all the back roads from Beloit to New Glarus and the drive was magnificent. I had no idea the farmlands of Wisconsin were so beautiful; the lawns and fields were still so lush and green.

When we arrived at New Glarus we found a quaint little Swiss like village with very friendly people www.swisstown.com . We had lunch in a small chalet where we dined on locally homemade bratwurst and kraut. After lunch we stopped at some of the shops where we found some Christmas ornaments for the kids and grand kids. We are collecting ornaments from all the various places we visit and will trim the tree with them while we are at Disney.

Of course we had to take a quick look around the chocolate shop. Fortunately we were still full from lunch so were able to bypass all the tempting candies. We didn't fare so well in the local bakery. We walked in and I felt like I must be in Rose's (from the Golden Girls) hometown.
We found things like Fastnacht Kucheli ...a rich pie crust pastry that the locals call "Knee Patches", and Bienensticla which is a sweet dough with a honey almond glaze and a Bavarian cream filling. We did breakdown and buy 1 of these to share....YUM!

Next we hiked up the hill (I had this overpowering urge to yodel as I climbed the hill; Salt was a little embarrassed but he is getting used to my eccentric ways after 19 years) to the Swiss Heritage Museum. www.swissheritage.org/ We are learning a lot about a section of America we have not traveled prior to this trip.

Well Blogger isn't letting me post pictures right now so I will post them later.

I've got friends in low places...

You're going to love this one! I decided I would try and save a few $ and so made reservations at one of the more inexpensive campgrounds. You would think that the name "House of David Trailer Park" would have been my first clue...DUH!

This was one of our neighbors and believe me he wasn't the worst....I was afraid if I tried to get close to the one I really wanted to photograph the guy's junkyard dog would get me. It reminded me of last year when we ended up in a FEMA park in New Orleans with the Katrina Victims. I guess it's all just part of the experience. We hade a few good chuckles and made sure we locked the doors! HOWEVER, now that I have had that experience I will guarantee you I will look for RV RESORTS!

Wednesday was supposed to be a serious travel day...that ended as soon as Salt saw this new Bass Pro Shop (he had never been in one). We stopped right around lunch time so grabbed lunch right at their restaurant where they served this really cool and YUMMY bread which they called Bimini bread. We did some shopping (mostly looking) and found the Weber Q grill we had been looking for.

Well, making the unplanned stop took us right into the rush hour traffic around Chicago. Can you imagine Salt going through 4 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic with major construction driving a 38' motor home towing a jeep??? He actually did a great job! I guess 9,000 miles last winter gave him plenty of practice .

We pretty much scooted through both Indiana and Illinois and crossed into Wisconsin where we spent the night in Beloit. Thursday we will take a leisurely drive through the beautiful, lush farm lands of Wisconsin. Boy there are a LOT of cornfields out here.

You've got to know when to hold them; know when to fold them...

On the way home from the Falls, we spotted the Seneca Niagara Casino www.senecaniagaracasino.com/. You guessed it, that little blue jeep turned in just like a homing pigeon. Salt made a small donation whereas I lucked out and won just a little over $100.

Check out the name of the machine Salt is playing..."Gambling for Dummies"...still didn't help.

And what would a night at the casino without a trip to the "all you can eat crab legs" buffet.

Monday we actually did some traveling and got as far as Port Huron, where we pulled into a Sam's parking lot for the night. We grabbed a few zzzz's and left early Tuesday morning for Farmington Hills, MI. to visit the Holocaust Memorial Center http://www.holocaustcenter.org/ . I have been almost obsessively interested in the holocaust since I studied it in high school. Coincidentally I had just purchased 2 new books on the subject right before we left Watertown. WOW what a powerful statement that museum makes! Even the architectural design is incredible (check the web site for a thorough explanation).

Welcome to my world...

We made the transition from the summer house on Grindstone to the mainland (Grass Point State Park) over a two week period, allowing Salt plenty of time to close the island house while I organized the motor home and prepared for the next seven months.

Betty came to the park to help me get my technology up to date; new photo programs on the computer, new printer/fax/copier installed and my blog restarted. I have SO much to update on the blog so I have concluded I need to start with the present and back tack the summer. Otherwise, I will be so confused (me confused...imagine that!) I will never start blogging again.

Welcome to my world...aka...chaos!

We left Grass Point @ 9:30 am on Sunday. Our first stop was the Niagara Falls KOA http://www.koaniagarafalls.com/ . As soon as we parked the RV and unhitched the jeep we headed for the "Falls".

Since we wanted to see the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side we hopped aboard the Maid of the Mist (with what appeared to be about 20 other "Smurfs")

Maid of the Mist