Family

It poured rain all night long.  It was a pretty hard rain, but we had no leaks in the RV.  When we woke up, it was a gray, chilly morning.  Got off to a slow start - I hiked the Shoreline Trail.  It was sort of a misty foggy and very very wet morning.  Lots of birds, a few fishermen.  We finally got on the road about 11:30 and headed for the Knife River Indian Villages.

The Knife River Indian Villages are a National Historic Site.  There were three nations that resided on this spot and built earth lodges.  All that remains are these depressions in the ground, each one maybe 40 to 50 feet in diameter.  There happened to be a school group there at the same time on a field trip.  As a consequence, besides being extremely loud (young voices do carry), we learned how to do some native games that they were teaching the kids.  We wandered down to the Knife River, the sun had come out and we sat on the river bank and lounged.

Then we headed over to the Ft Bethold Reservation where my niece Brittany lives with her husband Zach and their two kids Kellen and Takoda.  It was so nice to see Brittany, I really don't get to see her enough.  Zack took us out in his pickup to see the Ranch that his grandfather owns.  It is about 700 acres.  He raises cattle and horses.  They are allowed to free range it.  The north section of the property is totally wild.  Zach drove his pickup like he was four wheeling which I guess he was.  I must admit, I was a little scared when you look out the window and there is nothing there but straight down.  The views were very primal - this is an ancient land here.  Zach talked about his people, where they first settled  on this land.  We then went to Grandpa Titus's house and saw their new llamas and also Britt's horse BlueBell. 

Zach's land where we went up and down these hills:

Kellen and me shooting

Takoda

Twin Buttes is a tiny little town.  What is interesting is that on the short little street that Britt lives, her mother in law lives a couple of houses down, you can see Zach's brother's house out the window.  The kids all run back and forth between the houses, nobody locks their doors.  It is a very close community sort of what I imagine it used to be in the olden days before we all got so urbanized. 

PD:

Intro to NoDak

What is the deal with North Dakotans? You are driving along the freeway and you see signs - “Live Buffalo!!! Stop and See!!!!” You round the bend and there on top of the hill is a huge herd of buffalo. As you get nearer you realize that they are just metal cutouts standing on top of the hill. It is not only buffalo, along the way we saw elk, boars, deer – all metal standing in the middle of a field or under a tree. Very strange.

Today was more of a travel day. Did stop at a rest stop which was rather unique in that it looked like a gas station out of the 50's.

Stopped at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center but just looked at the gift shop. It was late in the day, tired, hungry and it just seemed like too much effort to actually tour the place. More buffalo sculptures here.

Crossed over the Garrison Dam. We crossed over a spillway first and thought we had crossed the dam. The spillway was massive but it was only maybe a twentieth of the size of the Garrison Dam. We have stopped at Lake Sakakawea State Park(third largest man-made lake in the U.S.A.) and we are the only campers here. There is electricity but the water hasn't been turned on yet for campers. We are parked right on the water. The shore is unique in that there is no sand, but all of these red flat rocks. Great skipping rocks.

This is a wonderful park - the aloneness, the view, the birds.  After two days of driving, it is good for the soul.   

Getting on the road

Today was the first day of travel to North Dakota. I'm a little nervous about going. This will be my first trip with an outsider. I've only traveled with Tony or by myself for a good many years. This time I'm with my sister-in-law, Barb, who I've only known for 38 years.  This will the first time in a long time we've spent an extended time together beyond family holidays.

Getting the RV ready to go this time was really different. The last time I had lists up the kazoo, but this time I'm sort of winging it. Food, clothes - throw them in the RV and go. If I forget something , oh well.

I drove up to Barbs house and it turned into a family gathering. Sister-in-law , nephew, great niece - all gathered to check out the Palace On Wheels. I must admit, I do get a charge out of showing it off. Austin was particularly impressed with my laundry system.

It was a nice drive, nothing outstanding except for a monster fire that was along the freeway. Pictures to follow. I did half of a Five Hour Energy and I talked Barbs ear off. Poor Barb. I am extremely sensitive to Five Hour Energy - it is like 12 Hour Energy for me. I am basically flying off the walls.

We drove to Barnesville Minnesota and stopped at a campground called Wagner Park, a small county park which was basically pretty much a bare field with a scuzzy bath house. We had water and electricity and sewer for $22.  We are the only ones there. Not too much to do or see, but it beat camping in the parking lot of Walmart.

Tickets and Trips

I thought it was time to update a few outstanding items.


Remember way back in March, March 17 to be exact.  That was the day of a sleet storm in Minnesota and it was also the day I slide my pretty little car into an intersection and got smashed into.  What was it - about six weeks ago?  The big news is that I have my car back - I didn't realize how much I missed it until it came back.  It is like a new car - trying to remember how to do all the little things like 'How do I hear my horoscope?"  Yes, my car tells me my horoscope.  The final bill ended up being over $11,000.  Wowzer.  Seems weird that the insurance company didn't total it, but all that matters is I have it back.




On March 17th, I also got a ticket from the attending officer for "inattentive driving".  Say what?  I made an appointment to go see a hearing officer to discuss this ticket.  The fine was supposed to be $126.  I show up at the hearing officer headquarters and there is a very jovial hearing officer ready to discuss my case.  He says, gee, normally when there is an accident and there are no witnesses, we just dismiss the case.  But it looks like the officer marked the citation as an injury case. (Remember the little staple in the head incident?)  Because injury is marked, the best I can do is lower your fine to $86 which comes with a plea of guilty.  OR you can go to court and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.  I decide I'm going to court.  I have nothing to lose except $126 plus court fees plus......
The next available appointment is October.  Wow - that is a long way out.  I decide I don't want to go to court in October, that is prime riding/traveling season.  I now have a court date in November.  It will be interesting to see how it goes.  I did ask my hearing officer if I would be running into Judge Judy or the likes of.  He says no.


So, I've been back home for three weeks.  Getting itchy feet.  My sister-in-law Barb says to me - let's go visit our niece Brittany up in North Dakota.  NoDak....hmmmm.  Not on most people's bucket list, but it will be fun.  We are leaving Sunday through Monday the following week.  We will hit a couple of National Historic Sites, Lake Sakakawea and Salem Sue - a five story tall Holstein cow!!!  How friggin' cool is that?   We are also hoping to hit the Enchanted Highway which is 32 miles in the middle of nowhere where there are giant sheet metal sculptures. 

Lessons Learned

I made it back home. Timing was perfect, I had just finished my last glass of wine the evening before. I was so very sad to leave the road and come home. I was also so very happy to be home and see Tony and my house and my cat Jogger. Reentry into real life, it was almost overwhelming. It is still going to be another two weeks before my car is fixed, not to mention the huge pile of mail that accumulated.

Back when I was in the corporate world, at the end of every project, there was an exercise called Lessons Learned where you reviewed the project, both good and bad and made notes supposedly to improve the next project. These are my lessons.

I had a blast on this trip. It was not the ideal way I would like to travel. I need more time and less ground covered. I also would really like to add more culture into the trip. Because I only had three weeks, I just focused on one of my goals which was to see every single national park, monument, historic site along the way. But, there is so much more out there.

While I got by without a car, I think having a car where I could run into town or maybe see some of those cultural attractions. Art museums generally do not have RV parking.

I don't like to drive more than three hours a day. So schedule accordingly.

Wind is bad. If there is a strong crosswind, then perhaps you should stay put.

RV parks should only be used when there is no place else to stay. Otherwise stay in state/county/city parks. I know some people like all the amenities in RV parks, but I don't like the closeness of the neighbors.

Make sure all the cabinets and drawers are closed before leaving the campsite. Nothing worse than driving along and hearing banging and crashing as you roll down the road.

Use the GasBuddy app more often. It will tell you where the cheaper gas is in the area that you are driving in.

If it is raining, make sure that the overhead vents are closed or it is going to get wet inside the RV.

Don't ask friends to remove staples out of your head. It is a job for trained professionals. Special kudos to Val for trying to come to my aid. That took guts for her to do what she did and I appreciate her even agreeing to try, let alone actually trying.

Till next time.....

Last Night Out

I had heard that there were going to be some strong winds so I wanted to get an early start before they started kicking in. I guess 9:00 is an early start for me nowadays.

Have I mentioned how much I do not like my gps system. She just doesn't understand that a 32 foot RV is perhaps not the best vehicle to go down some of those country roads I was on. I will say though that at least Iowa has shoulders on most of their roads, unlike Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.

I was heading for Effigy National Monument which is in northeast Iowa, on the river. Beautiful country, but it sure is hilly. Perhaps hilly is an understatement. I was going to say the nice thing about Iowa is that at the top of hills, they announce the grade percentage as in “8% grade – Trucks use low gear”. I found that it ended up scaring me. I was glad for the signs, but 8% grade is a steep downhill.

Effigy is a bunch of mounds build by ancient Native Americans. I thought that going to Effigy would be good since the week before I was in Georgia looking at their mounds. Georgia's mound builders were called Mississippians and they came from this area in Iowa. We climbed the bluff and walked around looking at the mounds. There was a great view of the Mississippi.

Drove on to a campground in Decorah. It was white knuckle driving. There was a strong cross wind and it felt like it was doing it's best to blow me off of the road. This was even worse than driving those Iowa mountains. Seriously, seriously scary. Now I don't know if it was the wind or a couple of branches that brushed my roof at Effigy, but when I look at my TV antenna, one side , the side that was facing toward the front of the bus is all bent backwards and sticking straight up. Thank goodness I have an appointment next week to fix some of the new rig shakedown problems. The antenna still seems to work but it needs to get fixed.

Pulpit Rock Campground is a county park. Hardly anybody here – I have a place right on the trout stream. I was supposed to have Wi-Fi and actually had it for five minutes before it disappeared.

It is my last night on the road so I had a pizza delivered. This camping stuff ain't too shabby.

 Climbing the bluff you can see the RV down below:

At the top of the bluff, that is a train down there

Miko is color coordinated for this landscape

Pulpit Creek Campground Decorah Iowa

Spooky Times

April 8

My son's birthday today.  Happy Birthday Aaron!!!!

Changing states, moving on north. Beautiful day for driving but windy. Really hate the wind when I'm driving something as tall as this vehicle. Drove through flat, flat Illinois into flat, flat Iowa.  I found a park called Maquoketa Cave State Park. Evidently the big draw here are the bat caves. Before you tour the bat caves you have to attend a lecture on white nose syndrome - a communicable disease that bats get. It is deadly for bats. Not to worry, the bat caves were closed because evidently the bats are still hibernating. I would have liked to see the bats, the caves notsomuch.

I drove into this campground and there was not a single soul around. No campers, no rangers, nobody. It was sort of spooky being all alone. The park itself is lovely, lots of pine trees, it smelled great. The ground was soft and springy from all the pine needles. I found a suitable place and parked.  I then noticed I was in Site #13. Eerier and eerier. Miko and I went hiking - this is a nice time of year, nothing is blooming so you can see quite a ways through the woods. I finally found one guy working in the park, gathering up leaves in the park with a big front loader. I flagged him down and asked him where I could find a ranger. Lo and behold, this was Mr. Ranger.  I told him I was camping because I thought it would be good if at least one person knew I was down in the campground.

When Miko and I did our sunset walk, the owls were hooting away and adding more to the spooky atmosphere. It was an extremely quiet night - good sleeping weather.

Miko basking in the sun:

The deserted campground:

Iowa woods - nothing green here: