We're here!

I know it's been a few days but we are here! I have more to come but am limited on internet time so maybe I will post a real post tomorrow! Just wanted to let you all know we made it safe and sound!

August 30

What a day! Got up this morning and hit the road by 9:30am! There was one more tourist attraction we just had to see in South Dakota - The Worlds Only Corn Palace! It's located in Mitchell, SD and was originally built in 1892 to show how prosperous the town was. They are now on the third Corn Palace which doubles as a basketball court! On the outside of the building, there are murals done all in cobs of corn (you can see them in the picture)! Every year they change the murals and this year the theme was transportation through the ages. Nifty! We decided to take head through Minnesota on our way to Iowa. There was NOTHING to see in Minnesota on the route we drove. We debated on driving 40miles farther than we needed to, to stop in at the SPAM museum but decided it probably just wasn't going to be worth it! So we carried on down through to Iowa. We passed some grass...And some corn...And some sunflowers...And some grass...And some corn...And some grass. Wasn't much else to see except for the road kill! There was quite a bit of it on the road, mostly foxes, skunk and porcupines AND then all the sudden we almost hit our own road kill! Was it a shoe? A piece of tire? A bird? Noooo, it was, a turtle?! I didn't see it myself but Carl swears he saw a turtle crossing the road and swerved around it...Not sure if he's been driving to much or what? We spent about 10 hours on the road today not including the few breaks that we took. We have driven around 4200km so far and figure we have about another 18 hours of driving ahead of us! We are now about an hour out of Iowa city at a campsite that has bull frogs! The weather today was disgusting! I do not think I will ever adjust to the feeling of being hot and sticky in the humidity! We stuck our dry hands out the car windows today and brought them in wet! Deeeeeesgusting!

August 29

We survived the night! And we didn't even have to use the axe! After some cereal, we drove to get a closer view of this National Monument! It was cool looking but not cool enough for us to pay the park fee to get closer. We were in for another long day of driving. We passed the South Dakota border, stopped to pick up a map of the place and headed straight to Crazy Horse!

Crazy Horse, like Mount Rushmore (which is abut 10 minutes away) is carved/ being carved in the side of a mountain. It is of a Lakota Native and his horse. The Lakota's wanted it carved there to show that they to have great leaders. So far it's been in progress for 63 years and by the looks of it, it will at least be that long until it's done! A man and his wife started the carving. The man (I forget the names) has passed away but the wife is still around directing the progress of the carving while 7 of her 10 children do the carving!

The picture shows a white model of what the mountain will eventually look like and behind it, is what it looks like now. From there we headed to Mount Rushmore, which compared to Crazy Horse, it quite small BUT still impressive! I don't think I need to fill you on what Mount Rushmore is...

Driving in this area was pretty neat! The landscape is similar to home, winding roads, rocks, trees and water (inside joke). But there are really cool little old towns nestled into the mountains. It's fun to drive through! We saw one little house that holds the guiness book of world records title for the biggest teddy bear collection! We didn't have time to stop and peek in...We kept on our journey East, always looking for interesting things to stop and see. Carl does most of the driving while I read up on places to stop or the history behind some of what we are seeing. North Western South Dakota is a tourists paradise! I guess because they get so many people coming to see Rushmore, they suck you in for everything too - Bear World, Christmas Village, Reptile World, the list goes on...I reaaally wanted to go to bear world but Carl said no :(

As we drove, we kept seeing signs for the place called Wall Drug in the town of Wall. They have free ice water, they have five cent coffee, they apparently have everything and are the largest drugstore in the world! So we had to stop! And we did! We walked through the entire place, taking them up on their offer of five cent coffee (which was better than any other free coffee we've gotten this trip)! In the "backyard" of the drugstore they have made it look like an old small town with many things to find amusement in...So we played around a bit! After acting like children for a bit, it was time to be adults again and hop back on the road! We took a small byway through the badlands of South Dakota. It was beautiful!

The flat, dry grasslands broke off into cliffs and valley's of sculpted red and gray rock. We stopped a few times to take in the beauty of it all but were leery of rattle snakes and the hot humid weather outside! Our drive continued and we crossed another time zone. Kinda weird that some of South Dakota is ahead of the other but either way, we are now two hours ahead of home!

August 28

This morning we got up early to make some headway! It was soooo cold last night! The wind finally died down but even in my thermals and sleeping bag, I was cold! It was hard to get out of the tent but luckily there was heated bathrooms right across the path from campsite! We left Montana and headed right for Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park! It was so amazing! I would totally recommend everyone to check it out! All over the park there are steaming geysers, hot springs and mud pots where the earth is bubbling and brewing! It reminded me of when we were in Bolivia and saw similar things but Yellowstone has a lot more of it to see! At some points it looks like there are small fires all over the ground but it is just small hotsprings or geysers! Of course we can't forget the main attraction, Old Faithful! We arrived at the spot just in time to see this world renowned geyser erupt (thats a picture of it to the left)! Pretty cool! As we stopped to enjoy some scenery, we saw some people fishing on one of the rivers. Then all the sudden, emerging from the trees behind them was a big furry, dark colored...Bison! We watched as it casually walked towards the fishermen, them not even noticing it! Finally, when the Bison was about 20 yards from the guys, they spotted him and watched him saunter past them and towards us! He walked right beside our car, minding his own business! It was awesome! We saw many buffalo/bison during our drive through the park! Once leaving the park we headed towards a small town called Cody, Wyoming where we thought of our nephew Cody - how could we not, his name was everywhere! After a quick lunch at "Granny's Diner" we drove...And drove...And drove!

We almost made it across the entire state of Wyoming but once it got to about 8pm, we thought we better pull over. The night had become a bit stormy, the wind was howling and big fat rain drops were starting to fall. We were en route to Wyoming's National Monument, the Devil's Tower when we decided we better set up camp. We were in what felt like the middle of no where! Luckily there was a small deserted campsite right off the road. We pulled in and looked around - no one was there. We were just getting back into the car when someone came out, "You lookin for a place to stay?" he said. "Yes", we answered. In his thick American accent he replied, "we just closed up shop but we'll letcha in". Thank goodness! We pulled into our site, a clear view of the highway, and one other camper to our left. As we set up camp and made a late dinner, we watched the lightening dance in the distance. It was a bit eery - a dark and stormy night, parked on the side of a backroad by a creep rock called "Devils Tower", a deserted campground (we swear the other camper belonged to the owner to make it look like someone was there). My mind started going...So I made Carl sleep with our axe at the foot of his bed!

August 27

So maybe I complained about the hot weather too much? It was a beautiful sunny day today but man that breeze is cold! It was windy all day today which didn’t bother us to much in the car but now that we are in the campsite, I am wearing thermals to bed! We left Burely, Idaho this morning en route to our first destination...

We are in the place of the “Famous Potato’s” as the license plates here say, so how could we not stop in and pay tribute to this wonderous vegetable?! We also wanted to compare what Idaho has to say about potato’s compared to what South America had to say! It’s true, South America had em’ first and has way more variety!

The museum was small BUT we did get to see the worlds largest potato chip and try potato fudge (in the shape of a potato of course!). Tasted like chocolate! We were sent on our way with 2 free packs of freeze dried hashbrowns that we might have for breakfast one morning!

We made another brief stop at Idaho Falls to see the man made waterfall in the middle of town – nothing to write home about (although I guess I kind of am). As we kept driving, the scenery somewhat changed. We are no longer dodging tumbleweeds (for real!) and the closer we are to Yellowstone National Park, the more trees we are seeing! We took another scenic Byway today to see Mesa Falls. Who thought that in all this flat land there would be so many big and beautiful waterfalls?! At these waterfalls we noticed two kayakers who were on their way down to the river. We asked them what they were up to and they said they were kayaking the river and were going to try doing 10 foot drop/ rapid/ waterfall. We couldn't miss it so we stuck around and watched them! Even got some video! It was pretty cool! Near the Falls was a little museum so we checked out some crazy animals they had on display!

As it was getting on to 5:30ish we thought we better find a campground for the night. We knew that we were nearing Wyoming and the closer we got, the less chance we had of finding a campsite that wasn’t full (close to Yellowstone and a Friday night). What we didn’t know and weren’t expecting, was a sign that read “Welcome to Montana”. Montana? Ummm, I thought we were going to Wyoming, Montana wasn’t on the list of states we were going through – where did we go wrong?! After a brief moment of panic we looked at the map again and realized we do actually go through a teeny part of South Eastern Montana – we are a stones throw away from Wyoming! Phew, that was close!

Happy Birthday Carl!

Yesterday was Carl's 26th birthday! We awoke to the bright sun shining into our tent as we slept without the fly to get a view of the stars and a bit of a breeze through the tent as it has been toasty warm! I got up and made Carl his birthday breakfast of extra fatty bacon, banana pancakes and an extra strong coffee - ok, I admit it, he made his own (and my) coffee! We enjoyed our free hot showers at the campground, packed up our car (which we are getting really good at!) and headed to Idaho where we encountered our first time change! We are now one hour ahead of home. It was hard not to keep the air conditioning on all day as we believe the high of the day was about 40 degrees (we saw a sign around 5pm that said it was 102 which is about 38).

We stopped briefly for lunch at a rest stop and did some reading up on Idaho, deciding on what route to take. As we were feeling a little down from driving all day, we thought it might be a good idea to get that feeling of bliss back so we got recharged in...

We stuck on the I-84 taking a small scenic by way called Thousand Springs, where waterfalls line the river we drove beside. It was purdy! Our last stop before our destination of Burley, was at Shoshone Falls in Twin Falls, Idaho. They call these falls the Niagra of the West...Or something to that affect. They were pretty impressive!

From Twin Falls to Burley is not a far drive but it took us longer than needed due to two bad accidents on the Interstate. The first involved a Mustang where the whole front end of the car was folded into itself and the second was of a semi truck where the whole front cab was completely gone - either burnt of blew up! Praying for those involved and appreciating the prayers from our friends and family regarding our safety!!! We finally made it to Burley where we checked in to a Super 8 Hotel for Carl's birthday and went out for his birthday dinner! Yup, headed across the street to Connor's Cafe where we ate burgers, enjoyed the flowery wall paper all over and eavesdropped in on some old truckers sitting at the counter enjoying their apple pie and telling ol' trucker stories - it again, was like right out of the movie's! Had a good sleep in A BED last night, ate some continental breakfast (and may have taken some extra oatmeal for tomorrow's breakfast) and are ready to take on the day! The plan is to drive to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming....Not sure if we will quite make it all the way but it will be close!

"Gorge"ous!

So yesterday after we spent most of the day in Portland, we headed east to make some progress before settling into our next campsite. We took Interstate 84 along the Columbia River Gorge. There are tons of hiking trails in this area - we wish we had more time to do them all! Instead, we just stopped at Multnomah Falls, a two tiered 620 foot high waterfall! Pictures don't do it justice!

From there, we found a campsite, a little more rustic than the KOA from the night before! This morning, we had a leisurely morning making our first stop at the Bonneville Fish Hatchery where we met Herman, the 11 foot long, 500 pound, 70 year old Sturgeon. He was a little camera shy but here is one of his relatives...No, not Carl...

We drove for a little while longer, enjoying our book on tape "Long Way Round", and stopped for lunch at park in Pendleton to savour our tuna hot dogs - what can I say, we didn't have any bread!

We drove until about 4:30 looking out at scenery that looked much like the picture to the left! The weather has been hot! I think today was the hottest so far! We are now in a small town called Baker City. It is small like I mentioned and very old fashioned looking. It's like taking a step back in time or onto a movie set. They have a Bank of America here that is actually in an old victorian looking house. We checked out the Geiser Grand Hotel built in 1889 and "lauded by the New York Times as one of the best hotels in the Pacific Northwest". We also saw the Carnegie Library Building built in 1909 funded by the same guy that funded the Carnegie Hall in Vancouver. As we drive farther and farther, we are seeing fewer and fewer Canadian license plates :( We are now only a few "miles" away from Idaho!