Guess What It Did Today? (Good Thing We Don't Have the Launch Codes)

You know what it did today:

So we did rainy day things. Best was a tour of a Minuteman Missile Facility. The picture below is of us in one of the launch control sites, in a blast-proof chamber under ground. Our tour guide is a retired Air Force commander who served 4 years in one of these command centers. He seemed overly nervous and wouldn't let us touch any buttons.

Then to rest our nerves, we went to famous Wall Drugs, in Wall, South Dakota. 2 square blocks of tourist shops and attractions right off I90. Here's a picture of Gary telling another tourist about our cool trailer and campsite (also pictured) on the White river.

I know, your asking, "but did you see any prairie dogs?"  Yes we did.

Any your thinking that all that rain must make green grassland and contented cows---just look at their expressions:

PS: if it doesn't stop raining, I don't recommend reading our blog tomorrow. It would probably be pictures of the inside of a bar.

Badlands Exceed All Imagination!

Those who have already been out west know that one of the biggest differences from the east is how immense the sky is. There is no describing how beautiful the landscape is out here.
   According to the visitor center, the grasslands Joy is standing on once covered 1/3 of the US. Easier to understand now how the plains indians didn't grasp the white man's idea that land could be owned.

The Badlands were an ancient seabed that began eroding after the continent raised up in that area.
Here's a spot on the edge of the grassland where the erosion has begun.

The seabed layers are reflected in the eroded areas. Though our pictures fail to capture the spectacular colors of the layers, this picture shows some. Apparently paleontology got its start (or a big boost) here in 1846 when a fossil jaw was discovered here and reported in The American Journal of Science and Arts. The yellow rock layers were found to contain fossils of vertibrates. The lower layer contains fossils of ancient sealife.

A Good Day Getting To the Badlands (SD)

We left Nebraska still raining and took the scenic route thru the Sand Hills --claimed to be the largest grass covered sand dune area in the world. Cattle grazing on the rolling hills. The road paralleled a railroad track that had train after train carrying coal--each train 1.4 miles long as measured by car odometer! Railroads are serious business out here. (How did Jenny get such good pictures of everything?)

When we got to Valentine we stopped for a Nebraska steak dinner----the legend of great mid-western beef appears to be true!
   As we strolled the mainstreet of town we came to an amazing building, which had a brick front sculpture. Apparently the artist carved the bricks before they were fired, and kept perfect track of where each one went. the picture below is of a small section of the wall.

 Finally we made it to the Badlands. The sky cleared and we got our first look. This area appears to be an ancient seabed that eroded into this dramatic shape.

Thanks for reading!

Nebraska!

--On our way from NY, I90 went thru Elkhart, Indiana--RV capital of the US. huge factories with endless lots of RVs and motorhomes. We tooted "hello".
--Greg, Bonnye, and Michael: thanks for pointing us to Pandora for tailored music listening, NPR podcasts, and hysterically funny urbanspoon for restaraunts.
--Once we hit western Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska we hit serious farm country. Each field was a square mile or more! This is where the country grows food; not the 5 acre fields in New England. We even passed a corn-to-ethanol refinery.
---There were also gigantic national truck distribution warehouses for major chainstores. We were  at the middle of the interstate highway system, and no-joke more than half the vehicles on the rode were trucks. Seeing is better than reading, nearly everything this country uses moves by truck.
--- We're in Grand Island, Nebraska; the ranger checking us in said "hope we don't get Serious weather with the thunderstorms tonight". Lots of rain, but no tornado watches.
--We did go to the Museum of the Pioneers in Stuhr. I'm learning that people have always been creative and industrious problem solvers. The Pawnee lodge below is the inside of an earth covered communal house shared by a group of 30-50 people. Seems like a great way to make life on the historic prairie better.

I think of modern engineering and manufacturing as coming of age in the 1950's, but here is a miniature cufflink watch from the 1920s apparently owned by a local family in Nebraska.

The history re-enactor for the hardware store was 97 years old. He told us firsthand about growing up with most of the things in the store. (The historic town was from 1912.) He said "Oh yes the town had electricity when he was little, but it didn't come out to farms until the 1940's." The blacksmith below, showed told us about how investor/planners who wanted to start a new town along the railroad would go recruit a blacksmith to do all the essential metalworking that would be needed by a community. While he talked, he welded the ends of the hanger he's holding by using borax as flux and pounding the redhot iron together-- no modern welding techniques at all!

Oh, and while working on this post the tv channel showed a thunderstorm warning, tornado watch, but it has already moved east to Kansas......lots of rain today! We're glad to be in a trailer!

"On the road again..."

We made it to rochester ny by 5pm and met jane and doug, jim's mom and stepdad, for dinner. They took us to a great seafood place called Bonefish. We had a wonderful time catching up.
     We stopped for the night at a Flying J truck/rv stop for the night in Ohio. Great farmland along rt90. We passed a farm raising buffalo! Ohio has changed! Today we grind thru ohio indiana illinois iowa and into nebraska for the night. Thanks for reading!

Preparing To Head West!

We've been planning a two month cross-country trip for a year now. Some would say we are compulsive planners, but this trip is "easy does it"--- just relying on our Droid and a few notes/travel books.

Our trailer is ready to go

We've taken increasingly long trips, practiced camping without hook-ups, and trained in survival measures such as recovering after a harrowing day with a sip of red wine.

Here's our plan

May 16 -- leave 8am.  Stop for dinner with Jane and Doug in Rochester, NY.  Continue on to Grande Island, Nebraska stopping to sleep in Flying J  truck/RV stops.

May 18-19   Grande Island, NB. Camp at Mormon Springs (an early Mormon settlement on their migration to Utah). visit the Museum of the Pioneers in Stuhr, NB.

May 20-24   Bad Lands National Park in South Dakota-- staying at White River KOA.

May 25-31   Black Hills South Dakota, staying at Custer State Park.

June 1          Hardin, SD

June 2-4       East side of Glacier National Park, at St. Mary's campground

June 5-6      Missoula, Montana

June 7         Leave the trailer in Missoula. Head towards Seattle to visit Gary's mom and brother Rob & family. Stop for the night at the Grand Coolie Dam.

June 8-14   visit Gary's family in Seattle.  Very lucky timing-- we will be there for Rob and Nan's  daughter Amy's high school graduation!!

June 15     Back to Missoula, MT. Pick up the trailer and spend the night.

June 16-20   west side of Glacier National Park-- Apgar campground

June 21-25    Yellowstone National Park. Grant campground (no fraternizing with bears).

June 26-29    Grand Tetons National Park, Wyoming. Coulter Bay campground.

June 30-July 4     Cody, Wy  for Rodeo week (more lucky timing)!  Ponderosa campground

July 5        start for home, but stop for the night at Devil's Tower National monument (remember Close Encounters of the Third Kind?)

July 6      stop in Mitchell, SD to see the Corn Palace and spend the night at Lake Mitchell campground.

July 7      driving east all day. stop to sleep at the Beloit, Illinois Flying J

July 8     Morning visit with Michael's mom, Joan and sister Christie

July 8-9   Erie, Pennsylvania stop for a day's R&R on the shores of Lake Erie.

July 10   Arrive back home. Should total about 9,000 miles (Whew!)